Description de la randonnée
Park outside the Durham Ox Pub (NG13 9NS).
(D/A) Walk back to the crossroads, keeping the pub on your left hand side. Cross straight over the crossroads onto Chapel Street. The bottom of Chapel Street it becomes a public footpath. Go down it and take the bridge angling off to the left.
(1) Then turn left along the footpath which brings you out on Lombard Street. Go right down it and it becomes public bridleway. Continue on the bridleway into a pleasant wooded area with fishing ponds on either side. The bridleway then opens up onto a field.
(2) Look out for a large railway arch to left. (If you would like a much shorter walk, ignore the arch and continue clockwise around the field. This will take you to the footbridge (waypoint 7). For the longer walk – go through the arch along another bridleway. You will pass a pond to your left and have a hedge to your right. After a few hundred yards the bridleway goes through the hedge and follows the next field in a clockwise fashion, resulting in the hedge being on your left.
(3) Watch to the left where you will see a concrete bridge covering the left-hand side ditch. Cross it and continue on a long lane that takes you into Whatton Village. The lane becomes Orston Lane.
(4) At the end of Orston Lane turn right (at the Village Green) and right again down Main Street. Main Street quickly forks - take the left-hand fork. The road then forks again. Take the left-hand fork again, down Church Street. Go past the Village Hall on the left and ignore the first public footpath to left. Immediately after the church go down the Church Walk Road on the left. This road becomes a public footpath. Note the next 2 kissing gates and their interesting weighted closing mechanism. The path diverges. Take the right branch and carefully cross the railway line.
(5) The path then opens up onto Main Street in the village of Aslockton. Turn right and go past the Cranmer Arms (unless you’re feeling parched) and look out for the public pathway on the right, after the post office. If you get to the church – you have missed the path. Along the footpath, you’ll see a mound on the left-hand side – what is left of a Motte and Bailey Castle. The path will go through the hedge on the right. A short steep rise takes you to a raised walkway. Ahead, and to the left, in the distance, you can see Orston on the ridgeline.
(6) The walkway ends at the River Smite where the path turns to the left. Continue along this riverside path until you come to a large wooden footbridge on the right. At this point, you have two options. If you want to avoid the main road completely, go over the bridge and continue straight on. The path will take you back to the bottom of the chapel street on your left ((1)). Alternatively, if you want to check out the Millennium Green, ignore the bridge and continue along the path through the next kissing gate. The pathway immediately forks – both forks ending in much the same place. The left fork takes you to the green, the right continues along the river. Either way, exit through the gate onto the main road into Orston.
(7) Turn right here, over the humpback bridge and onto a path that runs alongside the road. At the end of the path, you go over a second humpback bridge and into Orston. Another hundred yards sees you at the original crossroads with the Durham Ox Pub on the left, down Church Street. (D/A)