Too many Harrys and Nobbys, not enough Bills

Monday 21 May – Broom to Henley in Arden – Day 27

The day started bright and sunny, already promising to be warm one – forecast to be 22°. We looked back at the Broom Inn, looking very special in the morning sun. After navigating our way out of Broom, we followed the fields through to Wixford, a tiny settlement. It was easy walking, a windy route, a mixture of gravel tracks and footpaths, through to Alcester, an old Roman town. The river we crossed on the way looked very pretty.

The centre of Alcester is very handsome and full of lovely old buildings, some half timbered, very Tudor in appearance. While Peter went into  a local barbers and had an excellent haircut, Val had a brief look around the local 12^th century church. This had a collection of recently-woven tapestries depicting the various community and social groups in the area, which gave it a great “local” feel. We decided to have morning tea at a lovely looking café by the church – a lemonade for Val, a lovely flat white for Peter, and a large slice of cherry bakewell tart to share.

It took a bit of walking to get out of Alcester, but once we did we were completely in the countryside the whole way to Henley in Arden, over the next four hours. It was largely rolling countryside, mostly farmland (and mostly empty, though one field had a few cows in it) and a few wooded areas as well including Bannam Wood, an ancient woodland.

Complementing this, a Midlands rich-lister, Felix Dennis, took it upon himself to reforest some of this area some thirty years ago, recreating a link to the Forest of Arden, and replanting in broadleaf natives. While he has died, a trust is continuing on his work. The ultimate aim is to have replanted 30,000 acres, 120 square kilometres of new forest. Though only 12% complete, it is already England’s largest new native forest. We walked through some of the areas of new planting and were surrounded by fields full of saplings. An absolutely inspirational project.

We were grateful for the shady bits as the day was not only quite warm but also rather humid. Later on in the day, we must have walked a couple of kilometres through a succession of fields, all with high grass and connected by numerous leg-stretching stiles. A cry for ‘where have all the gates gone?’ could be heard from Val as she struggled over some fairly tall stiles. She (and Peter, it has to be said) definitely preferred the much-easier stile gates, requiring only a simple flick of the catch to get through. It was a case of “too many Harrys and Nobbys, not enough Bills” (Harry Styles, or Nobby Stiles for the older ones of you who remember the great English footballer, and Bill as in Bill Gates). Bad puns, yes we know…

It was nice to get to Henley in Arden, with its lovely main street. Even better, we had been told about a famous ice cream place there, and as we turned south to go towards our accommodation we were highly delighted to find it. The ice creams weren’t cheap but they were very tasty – Peter had cherry and Val had pineapple and coconut. They were delicious!

Tomorrow is a rest day, which we are so looking forward to. Our accommodation for the next two nights is Bridge House B&B, in a building dating back to the early 1600s. Now, dinner….

Distance: 22km

Doing it with such ‘stile’….