Day Thirteen

Thursday 7 January 2010 – Blisworth to Brixworth

Britain was in crisis – it must be true, because the BBC kept saying so. “More bad weather is on the way... feet of snow and freezing temperatures... send us your pictures of traffic chaos... hang on, Jeremy's hit the jackpot, snow-related fatality in East Anglia... over to you, Jeremy... don't forget those crisis pictures!” So it went on. My train from London to Northampton the day before had been delayed for just an hour while the South Midlands had a bit of a blizzard, and then things got going again.

This morning, my bus from Northampton to Blisworth had been 10 minutes late, which was not surprising as traffic was running more slowly and gingerly than usual on frozen, compacted snow on all but major roads. Arriving in Blisworth, I was a bit slow in switching from town to country mode as a woman bid me a cheery “good morning”. She disappeared into the local day nursery; I couldn't see whether she had any young customers on this snowy day.

I soon reached the towpath of the Grand Union Canal. The path was under what had probably been about 4 inches of snow, trampled by local walkers into a lovely carpet for me to walk on. This part of the country had obviously escaped the worst of the recent weather, and the sun was out, brilliantly illuminating the pretty scene. At Gayton Junction, after a couple of miles' walking, I turned off the main canal on to the Northampton Arm, which connected the midlands canal network with the waterways of the fenlands. I soon reached the first of 17 locks taking the canal down to the level of the River Nene at Northampton. The canal went under three ugly bridges, carrying the M1 and two slip roads leading grateful motorists to Rothersthorpe Services. I was tempted by a coffee stop here, but not tempted enough to work out how to intrude a pedestrian amongst all the traffic.

Just as Northampton was beginning to loom large on the Eastern horizon, I left the towpath and turned North, crossing the flood plain of the River Nene. As I turned East again, parallel with the Nene, I passed huge car parks, iced up and empty, which serve Northampton’s soccer and rugby stadiums. To make further progress in my desired direction (Northish), I had to face up to the most dangerous section of the whole expedition: the slithery, slidy, ungritted back streets of West Northampton. For a mile or so I teetered along, planning every footfall and eyeing every slope with suspicion.

Eventually I left the suburbs along a bridleway which also served as a local rubbish dump. Household refuse peeped up through the snow – disgusting, but also somehow intriguing. There was a nice surprise: National Cycle Route 6 appeared from the left, drew me seductively off to the right, and fell in alongside the main Northampton to Birmingham railway. Soon the main line peeled off to the left, leaving me to carry on Northwards on what used to be the line to Market Harborough. I read that, had Saint John Betjeman not saved St Pancras from the ravening hoards of the British Railways Board in the 1960s, this might have become the principal route between the East Midlands and London, with Euston as the Southern terminal. I had been expecting to pick up this line, now the Brampton Valley Way, two miles further ahead, so the early start was a treat.

Just where the Way started on my map, there was a pub of the buffed-up, foody sort which provided me with a very good lunch, after I had stripped off three of my five layers of clothing. Back on the BV Way, it was soon obvious that a bit of the railway line lives on in the form of the Northampton and Lamport Railway, a mile or so of “heritage” line which is being lovingly restored by enthusiasts. And, goodness, you have to be an enthusiast to spend hundreds of hours rescuing clapped-out, vandalised carriages which have obviously been rotting away in some British Rail sidings for years. As well as carriages and locos, the restorers had done sterling work on signal boxes and other buildings purchased from BR, imported and re-erected. Their paintwork was immaculate.

When the railway line finished, the old trackbed was given over entirely to walkers and cyclists. Of the latter, there were a few, and of the former, the pattern was the usual one. As I got within a mile or so of the car parks dotted along the way, the dog walkers would appear; a mile past the car parks, I would be left mostly alone. It’s a brilliant resource; if you can’t walk very far, and you need level ground to take your exercise, and you can drive or be driven, an ex-railway with well placed car parks fills the bill.

At the Spratton Road car park I headed, not for Spratton, but East to Brixworth, a large village or small town (who can tell which?), busy with mid-afternoon shoppers in cars and on foot.