Hello and welcome back to my blog 😊.

Today the Three Amigos met up and enjoyed an 11.5 mile circular walk from Bingham to Aslockton, Whatton-in-the -vale and on to Orston. We returned following the river Smite to Aslockton and back to Bingham. It was a chilly morning and we were expecting rain – a pre-cursor to named storm Eowyn which is arriving later today.

Leaving the streets of Bingham we set off following paths along fields passing close to the Skegness to Nottingham railway line.

We went through a ramshackle farm where we were surprised to see a Llama – it was surprised to see us too! Following our route through a new housing estate we eventually crossed the railway at the Aslockton station level crossing.

Walking through Aslockton village it was a short walk to enter Whatton-in-the Vale and then leave via a nice tree-lined road.

By this time the rain had commenced although thankfully, it was only light showers. Leaving the road we followed a bridleway and fields towards Orston. Here we went wrong slightly and had to double back across a field to enable us to get under the railway line via a tunnel. It was getting quite muddy underfoot at this stage.

There were lakes either side of our path. Mick saw a sign and it said they were a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific interest) site and were Plaster pits. It turns out that in the second half of the 19th century there were gypsum mines here and a factory making plaster from the Gypsum. Between 1868 and 1871 it accounted for 8% of Britain’s plaster production.https://nottsvillages.blogspot.com/2015/07/orston.html

Orston village has an impressive large village hall. We were looking for a bench to take a break and we found one not far from the hall. I was ready for a scotch egg and a Bovril. Refreshed, we continued through the village where we noticed snow drops in a garden – the first signs of spring 😊. A welcome sight.

The old telephone box in the village is said to be the largest hanging basket in the East Midlands. There were no flowers today but the baskets were ready for spring.

Not far out of Orston we crossed a bridge over the river Smite and turned left to follow the embankment for some distance.

This section of the walk proved very muddy and slowed us down because it would have been very easy to slip over. A fallen tree had to be climbed over.

Arriving back into Aslockton we passed a large earth mound known locally as ‘Cranmers Mound’ after Thomas Cranmer who was born in Aslockton in 1489. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry V111 and oversaw the reform of the church in England and the break with Rome. He was later condemned as a heretic by Mary Tudor and burned at the stake in Oxford in 1556.

Legend has it that Thomas, when he was a boy, used to climb the mound to hear the distant bells of Whatton church. The original purpose of the mound has been lost with time.

We continued through Aslockton passing the pub ‘The Cranmer Arms’ and the village shop which had a delivery bicycle parked outside. I wondered whether it was actually used or just ormanental?

Leaving Aslockton we re-traced our route back to Bingham pleased that we had escaped any heavy rain.

It had been a good stretch of the legs and we had learnt some more local history.

Happy Walking! 😊🚶