Walk 5 Vaughan’s Way & Letton 10km

This walk starts at the Kinnersley Arms. Do bear in mind the walk includes a few hundred metres along the busy A438 where there is no pavement, so you will need to be able to keep children and dogs under close control!

A) Turn right out of the car park of the Kinnersley Arms, and walk along the road for some 300 metres till you reach a track off to the left (opposite the tarmacked entrance to Lower Ailey Farm). Continue on the track/bridleway, going through a yard and past two cottages. At the old railway bridge, turn right onto Vaughan’s Way, a continuation of the bridleway.

B) You now follow Vaughan’s Way for some 2km. After passing Hurstleywood Cottage on the right-hand side, the route initially becomes a green lane and is pretty straight until it reaches the houses at Little London. (Action is being taken to improve the path along this green lane.)

Cross the little bridge at the end of the green lane, go through the gate and continue across the large open field heading towards a rather battered looking sycamore towards the middle of the far hedgerow 800 metres ahead. You’ll come to small gate just to the left of this tree. Head across the next field, aiming for another small gate that is just to the right of a pair of large trunked trees that have lost their tops and that stand just inside the next field. (Depending upon the season, you might be able to see the white-painted houses of Little London ahead of you and which is on your route.) You cross a corner of the next field, walking on much the same line, to a gate in the hedgerow on your half-right, where you cross a concrete bridge into the next field. Here you turn slightly left and cross the corner of this field, heading for another field gate and concrete bridge. At this gate walk straight ahead following the markers, heading towards a hedge that juts into the field. At this point bear slightly right and head towards the middle of the houses of Little London.

C) At Little London, pass through the gate out of the field onto a made-up lane and continue for about 100 metres. Just past Walnut Tree cottage on the left-hand side, enter the field on your right via a 5-bar gate or the stile alongside and turn sharp right almost back on yourself to follow the hedge on your right, soon crossing two stiles and the intervening field.

Once over the second stile, bear slightly left and cross this next field, aiming for a point slightly to the left of the telegraph pole that stands in the hedge opposite. Cross the stile here and then continue ahead across the next field, aiming towards the right-hand edge of the wood that cloaks much of Oaker’s Hill. As you cross the field, the stile in the hedgerow on the far side should become visible.

Once over the stile here, turn slightly left and aim slightly to the right of a large oak that stands in the far hedgerow where you will find a stile. This time the path turns slightly to the right to head across the next field, heading for what turns out to be a corner in the field where a line of fencing meets that of a hedgerow.

D) Once over the stile here, cross the track and then go over the stile on its far side. Initially follow the hedgerow on your right to a large oak tree, where the hedgerow makes a turn to the right. Your route, however, bears diagonally left towards the large oak tree in the middle of the field. Keeping this tree on your left continue across the field, to head towards the furthest corner in this many-sided field. Here, just to the left of the right-hand end of the wood that cloaks Oaker’s Hill, you will find a stile into the wood.

The path technically cuts across the corner of the wood, but is blocked by undergrowth. Instead, having crossed the stile, turn right on the track on the edge of the wood and then follow it round to the left and so out into a field. Go through the gateway you almost immediately come to in the hedgerow on your right once in the field, and turn left on the track.

E) Turn right at the end of the track onto the A438. Note: it’s a dangerous road and it may be necessary to cross to the opposite side to walk on the grass verge. Go past the old Swan pub and over Letton Bridge. When you reach a gate on the right just this side of Bull Farm (and all but opposite the entrance across a bridge to Letton Court), go through this into a field. Follow the hedge on your left alongside Bull Farm, and at the corner keep pretty well straight ahead, aiming for the left-hand end of a small copse which contains a single tall poplar on the far side of the field. You will find a pair of stiles to cross here to enter the field beyond. The path now turns half left to cross a corner of the field to a stile just to the left of a large oak tree, but it may be easier to follow the field’s headland down to a gate and so out on to the Letton to Kinnersley road.

F) Turn right on the road and walk along for about 300 metres, keeping a sharp eye out for a finger post indicating a path through a tall section of hedgerow on your left. (If you reach a little car pull in and a sign for The Sturts Nature Reserve on the left, you have gone about 100 metres too far.)

Follow this little path into a field, part of The Sturts Nature Reserve, and cross the field to the corner of hedgerow behind which lies The Old School House. Go round this corner and then you should see the posts and rail of a small footbridge standing in the field, which you head towards and cross. You then keep towards the corner of the field where a large oak shades a stile. Cross this, follow the hedge on your right and cross another stile out onto a lane.

G) Cross the lane and go over the stile opposite. Follow the hedge on your left till you reach a footbridge which you cross, and then turn right to follow the hedge. This will lead you to a gateway into the next field. From here you can see, two fields away, an array of solar panels in front of some poultry houses, and you cross the corner of the field you’re now in heading for these, and so pass through a gateway into the next field. The path now heads just to the left of these solar panels, and leaves the field by a gate.

Immediately turn right and go through a pair of large gates, to then turn left and walk alongside one of the poultry houses to a small gate at its far end. Pass through this into the farmyard and keep straight ahead, leaving a part brick-built building on your right and then passing in front of Myrtle Cottage on your left.

Keep walking ahead, aiming for the far right-hand corner of the paddock you’ll find yourself in, where you drop down a steep bank to a small wooden gate. Continue along a sunken path (which can be very wet at times) through another gate and approach a cottage. Continue up the path which then joins their gravelled approach which you take to emerge onto Ailey Lane. Turn right on the lane and then left at the T-junction ahead to return to the Kinnersley Arms.