You will also note, with some trepidation, that some of the crypts appear to have been opened. If you manage to read some of the weathered headstones, you will notice some of them date from the 17s. The beautiful, yet spooky, St Peter’s Church has not been used since 1970 and sits abandoned, surrounded by graves.

The footpath leads to a bridle way that will eventually bring you to an abandoned church. If you’ve brought apples in your lunch, be prepared to surrender them to the pair of very inquisitive field horses that will approach the fence. From the viaduct, follow the path around the site of the old Mill (that was shamefully demolished in the 1970’s) and out to the road that goes across the Wickham Mill Bridge.Ĭrossing to the other side you will find a set of steps that leads down to a footpath. The footpath leads across a weir then towards a unique wooden trestle bridge that once served as a railway viaduct and was restored using lottery funding. Just remember you are on a golf course and, despite golfers being intent on ruining their own good walks, it’s considered good etiquette to remain still while they are taking shots. The walk across the golf course is incredibly pleasant as it follows the banks of the River Blackwater along the fairways. To get there we walked from our house in Witham to the Blue Mills Bridge then cut through Benton Hall Golf Course, using the public footpath. We picked up the Rail trail at the Wickham Mill Bridge just outside Wickham Bishops. Sadly, most of the old wooden public footpath signs have faded or become overgrown so the map is a handy guide to at least keep you roughly in the right direction. A decent pair of walking boots are recommended as is an ordnance survey map, as it makes navigation considerably easier. Most of the trail is over slightly rough, but relatively flat terrain. The Blackwater Rail Trail was decommissioned in the 1960’s due to lack of use and, despite having lived in the area for several years, we’d never heard of it, until I stumbled over it by chance during a Google session. Our walking trips usually involve a picnic with a bottle of wine or a pit stop at a pub for a pint and grub, so it was nice to discover a hidden gem of a walking trail that we could pick up without having to drive to get to.

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