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Northampton 2: Village people

Posted on 29 July 202131 July 2021 by Rob Ainsley

A gentle, pleasant, sunny day of Northants countryside: thatchy villages with churches and cottages in orange-red stone, none quite fetching enough for a picture postcard, but all pleasant. Though with stamps the price they are these days, that was just as well.

What’s a lighthouse doing so far from the coast? Testing lifts, that’s what

We headed west from the centre along the River Nene, which is pronounced ‘Nenn’ in Northamptonshire, ‘Neen’ in Cambridgeshire, ‘Naynay’ in Spanish (where it means ‘baby’) and Hawaiian (where it is a sort of goose). From the towpath we admired the Express Lift Tower, ‘Northampton’s lighthouse’, where – rather excitingly – lift companies test parts by throwing them down a very long shaft.

Brockhall: What a shame there’s no access to the M1, more cars could visit here

After some humdrum B roads we got on the back lanes, and my route suggestions proved to have far more variety than Nigel’s. His were all on smooth tarmac, but mine were on a wide range of surfaces – pebbles, gravel, rocky farm tracks, potholes, and fascinatingly large and deep puddles.

Welton, twinned with Cape Town: Funny, I couldn’t see a Table Mountain here
Daventry Reservoir: Lots of annoying yapping, only some of it the dogs

Lunch was at the cafe on Daventry Reservoir, which I can confidently say is the best cafe you’ll find on Daventry Reservoir. After that, mainly on NCN50, we enjoyed a series of quiet lanes – made quieter by a road closure at one point that blocked vehicles but not bikes – through those pleasant little Northants villages and hamlets.

Canons Ashby. Or maybe Castle Ashby. No, as you were, Canons.

(Badby, for instance, used to have England’s only thatched youth hostel, though finding any sort of rural YHA hostel outside the Lakes is a challenge, whatever the roofing material.)

Stoke Bruerne: Canal country, and we know what that means – waterside pubs

After Stoke Bruerne’s canalside, busy with visitors in the sun, we had a very large and satisfying ice cream from the cafe at Salcey Forest. It was smashing. Unfortunately so was my phone: I dropped it while paying for them. Well, I was thinking of getting a new one anyway…

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