Viking Way, Stage 6. Martin Bridge to Bardney Abbey.

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.

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Common Darter

Migrant Hawker

Ruddy Darters

Brimstone

Speckled Wood

Meadow Brown

Viking Way, Stage 5. Scamblesby to Martin Bridge, Horncastle

When we set off from the centre of the small Wolds village of Scamblesby the sky was cloudless and temperatures were already soaring.  We headed out of the village in a south easterly direction, initially along the valley, passing a magnificent patch of chicory, before climbing to the top of the Wolds and dropping down into Belchford, where the route passes the excellent Bluebell Inn.  Of course, it would have been rude not to stop, although I did content myself with shandy.

The small River Waring rises in Belchford, flowing south west to meet the larger Bain in Horncastle.  When I was a pupil in the first year at Horncastle Grammar School in 1960, we had torrential rain on 7th October and both rivers catastrophically burst their banks disastrously flooding the town.  I remember we had to wade to the school gate to catch our bust and there was so much pressure in the drains along West Street that a geyser gushed out of every drain cover.  As children, though, we were delighted to have a week off school.

Our route continued southerly and as we climbed out of the valley once more, past combining in operation, we were rewarded with views across to Lincoln Cathedral.  Our next village was Fulletby.  Perched high on the Wolds with views to the cathedral and over the Wash to Norfolk, it must be one of the highest villages in Lincolnshire.  It was the home of Henry Winn who lived to be 98 and served as Parish Clerk from the age of 14 until he was 90, which is till a record.  He was also village greengrocer,draper, ironmonger, constable and schoolmaster as well as a poet and diarist.  In his long life he managed to father 21 children!

A very pleasant downhill section now took us into the market town of Horncastle, established largely by the Romans.  It became famous in Victorian times as the site of the county's largest horse fair.  By the mid 1800's dealers and even emissaries from royal houses were coming from all over Europe, Russia and America.  Decline set in by the turn of the century and the last fair was held in 1948.  Also in the town is the town house of Joseph Banks the famous botanist who sailed with Captain Cook.

We left the town via St Mary's Churchyard and followed the River Waring until its confluence with the Bain.  The old river still exists as a small meandering stream in parts, but it was canalized in 1792 allowing boat transport from Horncastle to the River Witham and then onward to Boston and Lincoln where access could be gained to the national river and canal network.  The coming of the railway, which runs side by side at this point spelt financial disaster and the last boat left Horncastle on 7th May 1878.

About a mile beyond Horncastle we joined the Spa Trail to Woodhall Spa which runs along the trackbed of the old Horncastle to Kirkstead Railway which was opened in 1855 and closed finally to passengers in 1954 and to goods traffic in 1972.  As children going to school on the bus we loved it when crossing the humpback Martin Bridge coincided with a steam train passing underneath.

The day's walking finished just beyond Martin Bridge at a parking spot where we had left one of the cars.  We were well ready to repair to the excellent Admiral Rodney in Horncastle for an early evening mean.  A fabulous day's walking once more..

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