The Seven Shires Way - Stage 7

The Seven Shires Way Stage 7 

Souldern to Mixbury – Friday 24 May 2013

Back again after a couple of months away. No one reason, a combination of bad weather, business travel, ill health, etc.  Anyhow good to be arriving on the usual CrossCountry train at Banbury station and waiting for our taxi to Souldern to pick up the Seven Shires Way. We finished off last time taking a detour up to Aynho to catch the bus.  So we apologise dear readers that we missed out the bit of the walk from the Oxford canal to Souldern.  Didn’t see much of this quiet village though noted that it did have a pub “The Fox”.  Grateful for an easy start to the walk which was along a quiet minor road parallel to the Oxfordshire-Northants boundary. Followed the directions in the book as far as Pimlico Farm then realised that the farmer/landowner had diverted the path around their property at grid ref SP558314.  Headed towards the radar domes of RAF Croughton and picked up a path actually along the boundary!

Domes of Croughton

Crossed over A43 (Oxford to Northampton road) and carried on down another minor until a convenient spot to shelter from the wind. A quick lunch and then headed through the stinging, wind-swept rain to Juniper Hill (hamlet) famous as the birthplace of Flora Thompson and the setting of “Larkrise” in Larkrise to Candleford (Banbury). We didn’t detour to see the actual cottage. It was too wet. (By the way when plotting out this route on Google Earth Juniper Hill is incorrectly identified by Google at Heath Farm!)

A couple more miles of wet grass but generally easy walking and then P attempted to phone the bus. This is the C500 South Northants Countyconnect service which is proudly identified in the Travel Line.com as being a request service. Apparently one phones in and requests the bus. P will have to fill us in with the minutiae but one has to be a member and then they didn’t seem too keen to turn out to Mixbury until quite late.

Never mind we pushed on to Mixbury despite the local sheep farmer putting a fence right across the footpath at grid ref SP603336and then there were a series of stiles across the stables at Barrow Stables, grid ref SP 606337 that were increasingly in poor repair; rotten wood,  split steps and the last one had a fallen tree right across the stile. We have now become familiar with the apparent frontier mentality of landowners along the Oxfordshire border (out-of-sight-out of mind of the Council?). Walked into the quiet village of Mixbury (no obvious shop, post office, pub or tea room).

Altar window, All Saints Church, Mixbury

Sheltered in the porch of the Church (All Saints), phoned for a taxi and were whisked back to Brackley in no time to catch a Stagecoach 500 bus back to Banbury. N and T got into conversation with a chap who had been born and brought up in Brackley and who gave the impression of being very concerned if he was more than three miles away from his centre of the universe. P had to return early for grandchild-sitting duties so N & T took an hour out to sample a selection of brews at the Bell Inn, Banbury before returning by train the Oxford and Reading respectively.

 

In summary: Dull, dreary and damp (weather).  A short walk of 7.8 miles, easy going apart from the wet conditions. Countryside pleasant enough but nothing of great note.