Lound RFM Blue Line

 Lound

RFM Blue Line

19/08/24

This walk predominantly on hard surfaces was a good panning in walk for my new shoes which I intend to wear hiking the hard surfaces of Fuerterventura. It also projects my current network of walks towards Lincoln which is one of the cities I want to connect my web to. 

The walk starts at the parking spot on the High Street in Blyth. The plan is to go to Scrooby Top, Ranskill, Lound and back via Torworth.

Exiting Blyth the road goes under the A1 and passes a pleasant enough duck pond on the left.

The lay of the land is pretty flat and this is the hilly part of the walk.

The path off Blyth Road passes a curious bungalow in the woods with a hexagonal roof. I guess it is either a gatehouse or a toll house, who knows. The path runs alongside a Roman Earthwork on the OS map.

The path ran through Breck's Wood and alongside the Golf Course before reaching the crossroads at Green Lane. There wasn't really anything to see of Roman interest but it always fun to walk in their footsteps. I speculated that this was probably a banking associated with a road and designed to keep the road dry from the marshes prevalent in Roman times.



 The noisy pig farm was a welcome distraction along the route.

I also caught up with a dog walker with 2 dogs. He was telling me that the big one was a Romanian Bukovina. It had a very big head. He said he had only had it for 3 months and it was a rescue dog. It seemed calm enough but powerful. Approaching us in the distance was a lady with a group of dogs. This was a test for both of them. All the dogs were on or being put onto leads. 

The lady did'nt even respond to my good morning, as I passed her, she had her hands full. I left them sorting out their charges which they seemed to do in an orderly fshion.

The house at Green Lane also had a octagonal roof so I was definitely veering towards a gatehouse for both bungalows. The OS shows Serlby Hall nearby so I think I have the the answer post walk. The road to Scrooby Top had very wide cut verges but they were clumpy and hard to walk on so I used the road as thankfully the traffic was sporadic.

The view from the road across the flat fields was green and lovely but uninspiring.

For some reason I thought this ruined building at Scrooby Top interesting. Perhaps it was the ubiquitous red pan tiles or the raised windows and doorway. 

The road to Ranskitt was busier but still quiet, thankfully it had a footpath as some of the vehicles were large HGV's.
 
 

The centre of Ranskill was tired and dusty. In fact everything seemed dusty. 

I just missed the crossings on the way out of Ranskill and had to wait for ages as 2 high speed trains passed in opposite directions.

The road morphed into a lane then a green path and this part of the walk was pleasantly green. There were some blackberries but they were much smaller than the ones on the craggs at home.

The sheep were hiding in the long dry grass.

The dry landscape was pleasant enough and the lane easy to follow. Several eagles were making loads of noise above the trees in the distance. I think they were worried I was coming too close.

Across dry potato fields scattered with damaged or missed potatoes past a couple of fields of ripening corn with the power station at West Burton in the distance I eventually reached the road north of Lound. From here all the way back to Blyth the route would follow tarmac roads, not good or pleasant but the paths were just not there to avoid the hard top.

I really liked Lound though the only creature I saw was a wary Burmese Blue. The old buildings and narrow road was attractive.

I had my halfway break on the Jubilee bench outside the village hall. It was a welcome rest. The way out of Lound was along an overgrown path towards the Great North Road..

The long walk along the roadside to Torworth was boring and tiring. Passing industrial units including a very dusty and noisy cement based works was unpleasant.

Torworth with its posh buildings and some very characterful older buildings was actually a welcome sight.

I was glad to leave the main road on to Moor Lane where there was no traffic at all except for a parliament of rooks flying from the clump of trees towards the fields.

Back to Blyth and just one more thing to do. I had to sit on the bench in the park in front of the church as this connected the walk to my network of other walks. 

This walk started off great with the Roman Ridge and the various interesting paths and buildings all the way to Lound but the way back was just a trudge along hard top roads back to Blyth. I enjoyed the walk in total but the distance was a bit long for the amount of interest on the route. It failed to become a contemplative walk as I was keeping a look out for traffic for long stretches.