Distance: 18.6 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium (distance is strenuous)

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk through the rolling hills of the south east Midlands from Market Harborough to Northampton all the Brampton Valley Way, a former railway line, and now one of the longest ex-trackbed multipurpose paths in the UK.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Walking the Brampton Valley Way End-to-End

Running across the pretty, remote seeming, and surprisingly hilly countryside of north western Northamptonshire, the Brampton Valley Way is a multipurpose path linking Market Harborough in the far south of Leicestershire, with Northampton, the largest settlement not to be a city in the Midlands region.

Opened in 1993 by Northamptonshire County Council, in collaboration with Leicestershire and Sustrans, it was an early part of the National Cycle Network created in the years around the Millenium. The Brampton Valley Way is one of the longest former railway lines to have been converted into a path in the country. It is also part of the ambitiously long Midshires Way, which spans the entire length of what historically has reasonably been considered the English Midlands. 

As is often the case with long distance multipurpose paths the Brampton Valley Way enjoyed a prior existence as a railway line. Having opened in 1859 as the London and North Western Railway’s Northampton to Market Harborough line. The route survived the Beeching Report’s cuts in the 1960s operating until 1981 when the route was terminated.   

Between the 1930s and 1960s northern Northamptonshire was at the heart of the south east Midland’s ironstone quarrying boom. A development which led to the creation of Corby as a new town for making steel. Several ironstone quarries were situated along the route, like the one at Pitsford, served by the full panoply of draglines, digging machines and internal light railways. A form of industrial production which kept the Brampton Valley Line busy with freight traffic into the 1960s, something which explains the continued importance of a route which frankly runs through an incredibly rural landscape in the middle of nowhere. Few traces remain of the ironstone quarrying industry in the landscape – at least at surface level – as care was taken to backfill the workings and plant over where they had once been after extraction ended.

Increasingly there is arguably a case for restoring the Brampton Valley Line as a railway. Northampton has grown in size and importance since the line closed. It is now fourth largest settlement in the eastern Midlands, nearly the same size as Derby, yet lacks a railway connection with the rest of the subregion, only having tracks running north towards the West Midlands conurbation and south to London. 

However, there is little chance of this happening any time soon. Leaving the Brampton Valley Way to the walkers, cyclists and equestrians. As well as the enthusiasts of the Northampton and Lamport Railway, who run a little heritage railway for a mile or so, alongside the path on the northern reaches of Northampton’s ever expanding suburban hinterland.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This walk from Market Harborough to Northampton begins from Market Harborough Railway Station on the Midland Mainline.

Cross the forecourt heading for the road in front of the station.

On the other side turn left again, crossing a bridge running over a small stream. It is waymarked as leading to the Brampton Valley Way, a cycle path. You want to reach the Brampton Valley Way so keep an eye out for these signs.

Having crossed the bridge follow a walkway running alongside the stream heading to the right.

This runs around the edge of Market Harborough town centre.

Soon you come to the side of a branch of Lidl, keep on walking straight ahead along the walkway beyond it.

Very soon after Lidl you come to crossing lights opposite a branch of that other German discounter chain Aldi.

Cross over the road here and head down the walkway on the other side.

Soon emerging onto the edge of a retail park there is a walkway off to your left.

Turn left here and follow the walkway down to the side of a road.

Cross the road here and turn off to the right onto an estate of modern 1990s or early 2000s vintage houses.

Keep heading along the road running through the housing estate to the right.

Presently you reach a snicket. Head down this snicket.

This leads after a short distance to a park off to the left. Which you cross heading slightly to the right, walking along a footpath which runs across it.

On the far side next to allotments you come to the start of the Brampton Valley Way.

The Brampton Valley Way is the former railway line between Market Harborough and Northampton. Fourteen miles long it was converted after it closed to goods traffic in 1981 to a mixed use path for walkers, cyclists and horse riders, and a “linear park”, by the county councils of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. You will follow it for the entire length of the path right down to Northampton.

Keep walking straight down the Brampton Way. The initial stretch is through the suburbs of Market Harborough, including having to cross a road.

Soon though you are out into open countryside, and after a mile or so pass a Sustrans National Cycle Route waymark indicating that you are passing from Leicestershire into Northamptonshire.

You continue for another mile or more along the Brampton Valley Way, passing through several shallow cuttings.

Presently you enter a deeper cutting near the edge of the village of Great Oxenden.

Here you encounter the Oxendon Tunnel.

See you on the other side.

The tunnel is almost half a kilometre long and unlit. So some walkers may prefer to take the slight detour through the village of Great Oxendon, over the top of the tunnel. It is well waymarked with several paths forming part of long distance walking routes. You also get to see an impressive dark brick tunnel ventilation shaft.

On the far side of the tunnel you continue a bit further along the Brampton Valley Way.

Soon you reach an open section, used as a car park for dog walkers and others using the Brampton Way as a leisure route, where once there must have been a level crossing across the railway.

Continue along the route a bit further, steadily approaching the Kelmarsh Tunnel, the second of the two long tunnels on the route.

Walkers are welcome to walk through the tunnel. Which like the Oxendon Tunnel a couple of miles to the north, is unlit.  

Unlike the Oxendon Tunnel the route around the Kelmarsh Tunnel is less clear. So it is outlined below.

Shortly before you reach the tunnel mouth there is a flight of steps running down into a cark park.

Head down these steps and turn right walking across the car park.

This leads to a road. Here turn left and walk up the road towards the village of Arthingworth.

Continue walking along this lane across the rolling hilly countryside of north Northamptonshire for some distance.

Continue walking along this lane across the rolling hilly countryside of north Northamptonshire for some distance.

Presently you reach a point where the lane joins with another.

Here on the far side of the road slightly off to the right there is a gateway leading into a community orchard of sorts. These are surprisingly common in Northamptonshire, for some reason.

Once in the orchard follow the path straight ahead around the edge at the right handside of the coppice.

Keep going until you reach a hedge at the bottom, above a cutting which the busy A14 road, running between the Midlands and the east coast ports, runs through.

Here there is a path running off through gates to the right.

Follow this well worn path across an open field, then straight ahead down through scrubby woodland beside the road, walking down a gentle slope.

Presently it leads you out near the southern portal of the Kelmarsh Tunnel back on the Brampton Valley Way.

Back on the Brampton Valley Way turn left and keep walking, heading underneath the A14 then turning left through a gateway back onto the path.

Keep walking passing through a picnic area at Maidwell.

Then continuing on to cross the A508 road. This is just before the walk’s halfway point.

Carrying on beyond the A508 you keep following the path.

After Brixworth you are only a couple of miles from the edge of Northampton.

Approaching the edge of Northampton you soon reach the Northampton and Lamport Heritage Railway.

You walk alongside the heritage railway’s workings for a mile or so.

At the bottom of the heritage railway, now on the northern edge of Northampton, you reach the busy A5199.

Cross the road here, and pick up the Brampton Valley Way once more, slightly to the left after crossing the road.

Follow the path for another couple of miles as it winds around the edge of Northampton. You soon see the West Coast Mainline off to your right.

Approaching the end of the Brampton Valley Way you near the West Coast Mainline close to where the two railways once met.

Keep on walking until you reach the end of the track at a point where the Brampton Valley Way finishes. Here the path dips down right next to the West Coast Mainline, passes beneath the railway tracks, then runs uphill towards a rutted unpaved lane beside a playing field.

Once at the unpaved lane turn left. Follow the unpaved lane beside the field until you reach the side of a busy road.

Here, turn right and walk along the road a little way. Cross over to the far side when you are able.

Soon off to the left there is a road running through an industrial estate.

Turn left and follow this road for some distance as it runs throughout the industrial estate, then out into housing estates of both immediate post war, and inter-war vintage. 

Reaching the side of the A428 turn left, crossing a bridge over the railway beneath you.

Just after the bridge you come to a crossroads. Here cross the road and take the right hand fork coming off the junction.

Follow the road through an industrial and trading estate approaching Northampton Railway Station which you can see to your right.

Soon you reach the A4500 on the edge of Northampton town centre. Here turn right and walk the short distance to the front of Northampton Railway Station.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

From Northampton Station it is possible to catch trains north towards the West Midlands conurbation and the North West beyond that and south towards Milton Keynes and London. Buses from Northampton head north back towards Market Harborough and Leicestershire as well as to destinations across Northamponshire.