Yet another day of hot sunny weather greeted us for stage 6 of our walk and, as far as stages are concerned, the half way point. We picked up where we left off on the Spa Trail which follows the trackbed of the Horncastle to Kirkstead Railway, passing through Woodhall Spa where I was born and grew up. A mile or so before the town we had to leave the railway and follow the path across the golf course where I used to work as a caddy in my (much) younger years. The course dates from 1903 and is now the home of the English Golf Union with a second course constructed in more recent years. On the edge of the course is the Tower on the Moor, a hunting tower built by Ralph Cromwell , treasurer of England to Henry V! in the 15th century. His castle is a few miles away at Tattershall.
Woodhall grew as a result of an unsuccessful search for coal. Instead, spa waters were found and the town developed into a spa resort during Edwardian times. Use of the baths declined, however, and the wellsides collapsed. The old Spa building are now a sad sight. The area around Woodhall was well supplied with heavy bomber bases during WWII and the 'dambbusters' 617 squadron officers mess was in the Petwood Hotel. In the centre of the town are the Royal Square gardens where once stood the Royal Hotel, but it was the victim of a German landmine during the war. In the square now is a memorial to the famous Dambusters.
Our route now turned north to follow the valley of the River Witham to Lincoln. During medieval times the valley was rich in Abbeys, built here due the the proximity of the river for transport and also the Lincolnshire Limewoods for fuel and pannage. They were also in sight of Lincoln Cathedral. Kirkstead and Tupholme abbeys are very close to our route and well worth a detour and we pass both Bardney on this section and Barlings on the next.
From Woodhall the route led us across fields golden with ripe harvest and skirting the Limewoods, lings to the ancient primeval post glacial forest. In Stixwould we had our lunch by the very attractive church and then continued to Southrey on the banks of the Witham before completing the day's walking at Bardney Abbey. Towering over Bardney id the British Sugar factory built in 1927. Now closed it was a feature of my childhood as during the beet 'campaign' from September to February each year it operated 24 hours a day and processed millions of tonnes of beet into 110,00 tonnes of sugar. During the campaign fleets of lorries used to pass through Woodhall on the way to the factory usually losing some beet on the way. We children used to gather these and around hallowe'en and bonfire night, we would make them in our version of pumpkin lanterns. The smell of roasting beet was wonderful. The route meets the Witham for the first time at Southrey and Bardney and from now on we shall see it several more times, eventually passing close its source at South Witham in the southern reaches of the county.
On today's walk were butterflies aplenty, mainly speckled woods, meadow browns and the occasional brimstone. Plenty of dragonflies were on the wing too; largely migrant hawkers, the last to emerge in the year, and both common and ruddy darters.
To view large, please click on an image.
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| Common Darter |
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| Migrant Hawker |
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| Ruddy Darters |
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| Brimstone |
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| Speckled Wood |
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| Meadow Brown |
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