Report from the Barnack and Southorpe walk: 13th October 2022

Report from The Barnack and Southorpe walk on Thursday 13th October 2022

By Patricia Mead with additional pictures from the archives, and occasional comments from Tony.

By way of introduction, the picture of Barnack above left, is probably from around 1920, but is undated.

The church is Anglo-Saxon in origin and is reported to have been started around 1000 years ago.

The village’s most famous son is perhaps Charles Kingsley, the author of The Water Babies, who spent his childhood at The Rectory (now called Kingsley House).

The walk started at the public footpath opposite the Church and followed the footpath between the cricket pavilion and the bowls club.

We crossed the road and followed the path along the southern boundary of Barnack Hills and Holes, then followed the stonewall boundary of Walcot Hall.

The footpath carries on along the old Roman Road of Ermine Street crossing pasture land with lovely views.

The walk then passes through Southorpe where we stopped for a coffee break.

The walk passes under a road bridge that crosses the old disused Wansford to Stamford railway line.

The picture below is another one from olden times which is unfortunately not dated but is said to be of the village railway station.

If you look closely you can see the remains of the platform of Ufford Bridge Station and below is a view of the station, and indeed here is a picture (below) of the Ufford Bridge station when it was active.

Which raises the question (to Tony, and probably nobody else) was there at one time an Ufford station and an Ufford Bridge station?

But back with the walk….

We continued along the disused railway track and after a while, if you look to your left, you can see the back of Walcot Hall and the stables.

The track continues along hedgerows and a copse and then returns back to the start of the walk.