Hello and welcome back to my blog 😊.

Following a very wet start to the day the rain eventually stopped and myself and Mick were able to enjoy a lovely 10 mile circular walk.

We drove down the A1 and ended up stuck in a traffic jam for about a mile – the A1 is a notorious accident prone road through Lincolnshire. Parking in the Lincolnshire village of Swinstead our walk would take us to Creeton, Scottlethorpe and Edenham. A good deal of the walk today was across the Grimsthorpe Castle Estate. https://grimsthorpe.co.uk/

What was particularly nice about the walk, for us, was that we weren’t expecting a large estate with castle and so this was a pleasant surprise.

Leaving Swinstead we took paths across fields and reached a valley with a small stream running through it which we crossed via a wooden bridge.

We were pleased that there were no wet crops in the fields – we had got quite wet on our last walk .

We headed up Gorse Hill towards The Drift (a long distance track). The Drift runs parallel to the East Coast Mainline Railway and so, we watched numerous trains passing us -its a busy line!

We reached the small hamlet of Creeton where we happened upon a bench and took time to enjoy a cuppa.

Leaving Creeton Mick spotted a small herd of wild Deer in a field. Finding wild deer is definitely becoming more commonplace in England.

Along the way we would find numerous notices warning that shooting of deer was taking place, although we didn’t hear any munitions today.

We passed through some nice wooded areas in the Estate and Mick thought he had spotted a wood-pecker.

One or two drops of rain started to fall but it didn’t amount to anything 😊. Our route took us through the small hamlet of Scottlethorpe and we were soon walking into the village of Edenham where there were roadworks occurring.

We walked through the village , past the pub (looked nice) over a bridge across the river , through a field containing well behaved cows and another containing sheep.

Shortly, we could see the large lake belonging to the Castle and then the castle itself. Our route took us around the outside of the lake.

The castle is the home of Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. Grimsthorpe has been the home of the de Eresby family since 1516. The park is 3,000 acres and is 5 miles across at its longest point. Apparently the castle was a filming location for the latest series of Bridgerton.

We were enjoying the views of the castle and lake. At this stage we had walked 9 miles and not met a soul.

It wasn’t long before we were walking back into Swinstead.

Arriving back at the car we both agreed that it had been a cracking walk. It had been quite undulating so we were feeling it in ours legs. I am sure we will be doing this walk again.

Happy Walking! 😊🚶‍♂️