As I have now done fifty Walks in Central Nottinghamshire much of the area has been covered and I wanted to try something a little different.
For years I have thought about devising a long-distance footpath around Nottinghamshire taking in as many of the most interesting parts of the county as I could while avoiding too many loops and spurs.
There are already several trails in Notts, most notably the Robin Hood Way and the Trent Valley Way, which cover some of the sights. My route uses parts of these trails which are usually well signposted and waymarked. It also links with other shorter trails and paths to visit areas I think worth seeing.
As I thought about the idea of my route I set myself some ground rules that as far as possible I would stick to:
It will be a circular walk starting and finishing in the centre of Nottingham.
Try to visit all the major towns in the county and as many notable places of interest as possible including the highest point in Nottinghamshire.
Divide the route into sections of a maximum of around ten miles so that anyone doing the Way can break it up easily into shorter walks.
Each section will start and finish somewhere accessible for public transport.
Try to avoid walking along roads, especially busy roads, as much as possible.
Try and link with the various trails and paths in the County to give a taste of them for walkers interested in those.
Bearing these points in mind I came up with a route divided into eighteen stages, which are:-
1. Nottingham to Beeston via Attenborough
2. Beeston to Kimberley
3. Kimberley to Hucknall
4. Hucknall to Mansfield
5. Mansfield to Sutton-in-Ashfield
6. Sutton-in-Ashfield to Mansfield Woodhouse via Silverhill Wood (the highest point in Nottinghamshire)
7. Mansfield Woodhouse to Edwinstowe
8. Edwinstowe to Creswell Crags
9. Creswell Crags to Worksop
10. Worksop to Retford
11. Retford to Tuxford
12. Tuxford to Newark
13. Newark to Southwell
14. Southwell to Lowdham
15.Lowdham to Radcliffe on Trent
16.Radcliffe on Trent to West Bridgford
17.West Bridgford to Keyworth
18.Keyworth to Nottingham
There are a few loops in this which take you back close to other parts of the route, which can be annoying, but this may be useful in some cases for doing shorter circular walks.
I reckon that the total distance would be around 160 miles or 250 kilometres although I haven’t calculated this accurately yet.
I have done some sections in the past and will publish guides to the various stages with maps and directions. My plan is to do the rest of the walk over the next year and write guides to those as and when I do them. The route isn’t set in stone and if anyone reading this thinks that they know a better way than mine in a certain area then please let me know. I don’t know all parts of the county that well and my choices of path may not all be the best ones.
For more details, photos and descriptions of the route follow this link to The Nottinghamshire Way for my blog or this one for The Nottinghamshire Way Facebook Page
This does mean that I will be spending less time on my Walks in Central Nottinghamshire blog than previously but I will still try to add more walks when I can.
Thanks for reading my posts on this blog and I hope you will continue to enjoy these walks.
Walks in Central Nottinghamshire (and Beyond) 