When Walk Midlands was set-up one of the objectives was to create an share straightforward waysof accessing key attractions across the English Midlands on foot.
Many of these locations and sites have historic signaificance. Whether relating to the life and labour of everyday people, those who lived off the wealth they created, the course of Britian’s national history, our relationship with the natural world or some admixture of all of them.
The selected of walks curated below span the English Midlands providing access without a car, to top history and heritage days out to suit all interests. Each one gives a real insight into the region’s past and how what happened in the Midlands once upon a time still shapes our world today.
Smethick: No. 1 for Industrial and Migration History
Birmingham – Smethwick
Smethwick: the bridge between Birmingham and the Black Country. Birthplace of the modern steam engine, key contributor to the birth of the factory system and one of the first places where Black and South Asian migrants settled in large numbers after World War II and successfully fought for their rights, building today’s vibrant community. Read more
North Staffordshire’s “Big Pit“
Chatterley Whitfield
Sitting just north of Stoke-on-Trent Cahtterley Whitfield, whilst incredibly at risk due to lack of funding for ongoing repairs, is the most complete example of a large late 19th and 20th Century deep colliery anywhere in the UK. Read more
Pentrich Revolution
Ambergate – Alfreton
Walk in Derbyshire – Nottingham boundary country, one of the cradles of the industrial revolution and the heartland of Luddism. Passes through Pentrich, the starting point for the quixiotic, doomed and partly government spy provoked, Pentrich Revolution of 1817. The last armed uprising on British soil. Read more
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
Coughton Court
Walk in the Warwickshire countryside from Henley-in-Arden Railway Station to Coughton Court, most famous for its connections to pro-Catholic upper class intrigue in the 16th and 17th Century, including 1605’s Gunpowder Plot. Read more
Roman Leeds?
The Little Railway Which Does
Chasewater Railway
Created from the colliery railway lines which once snaked all around the Chasewater Canal reservoir near Cannock Chase, Chasewater Railway is a short lakeside heritage railway, devoted to preserving and sharing the history of the Midland’s former industrial railways. Read more
Commoning on High
Long Mynd
Circular walk from Church Stretton Railway Station up and along the Long Mynd plateau. Notable a. for its outstanding natural beauty b. for being one of the larger surviving chunks of common land in the Midlands, still communally managed by the commoners as it has been for centuries. Read more
Water Under the Mill
Ambergate – Cromford
Walk along a preserved section of the Cromford Canal to Cromford Wharf, adjacent to Arkwright’s Mill the first modern factory spinning cotton opened in 1770 and powered by gignatic waterwheels. Read more
For the Want of a Bridge the Battle was Lost
Colwall – Upton-upon-Severn
Walk across the Malvern Hills to Colwall a pleasant little town beside the River Severn. The site of a skirmish in 1651 which proved decisive in determining the course of the Battle of Worcester which saw the future Charles I defeated by Parliament’s army and exiled to Europe for nearly a decade. Read more
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Witley Court
How to walk from Stourport-on-Severn to Witley Court one of the most famous and celebrated modern ruins in the Midlands. The gutted neo-classical Victorian mansion which featured (pre-partial restoration by English Heritage) in the video for Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale”. Read more
Erewash Valley’s “Iron Giant”
Bennerley Viaduct
Spanning the Erewash Valley, connecting Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the nearly 500 metre long Bennerley Viaduct is a remarkable survivival. A relic of the growth of coal traffic on the Midlands Railway in the 1870s, the structure amazingly survived disused for over 50 years until it was reopened in 2022 as a walking and cycling route. Read more
The Previous King Charles
Boscobel House
Located almost exactly where Staffordshire and Shropshire meet, Boscobel House feels isolated even today. It was here in 1651 after fleeing the rout of his army at the Battle of Worcester that the future Charles II hid for a time in an oak tree. Descendents of which can still be seen on site to this day. Read more
My Kingdom for a Horse
The Battle of Bosworth Field
Another episode of lèse-majesté with a Midlands connection. The battle in 1485 which settled the Wars of the Roses and saw King Richard killed and replaced with Henry Tudor. Read more
Peak Class Warfare
Retrace the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass
Starting from Hayfield this circular walk retrade the route up and around the edge of the Kinder Scout plateau taken by several hundred overwhelmingly young people who in definance of the Duke of Devonshire’s gamekeepers trespassed on the summit of Kinderr Scout (the highest in the Peak District) in April 1932. Read more
The Black Country’s Fitzcarraldo?
The Lost Lapal Canal
Follow the route of the southern end of the Dudley No. 2 Canal (insofar as possible) from Selly Oak to Halesowen. Includes the site of the long lost Lapal Tunnel (three miles long and geologically unstable) which now mostly lies beneath Woodgate Valley Park and the M5 motorway. Read more
Priesthole Palace
Baddesley Clinton
Walk from Dorridge near Solihull just across the county boundary into Worcestershire to Baddesley Clinton. A moated manor house that is another Midlands property with connections to the 16th and 17th Catholic resistance, utterly riddled with priestholes. Read more
Lord Byron’s Country Pile
Newstead Abbey
Lord Byron, romantic poet, rakehell, radical member of the House of Lords, Luddite sympathiser and Hero of the Greek War of Independence was from Nottinghamshire. Newstead Abbey – now owned and managed by Nottingham City Council – was his ancestral seat. Read more
Ned Ludd’s Home Town
Leicester – Anstey
Walk from central Leicester to the outlying village of Anstey. The village is supposedly the home of Ned Ludd the inspiration and guiding lodestar of the Luddite movement of machine wreckers in the early to mid-1810s. Read more
The Earl of Leicester’s Red Castle
Warwick – Kenilworth
Mostly rural walk from Warwick Railway Station north to Kenilworth Castle an imposing ruined fortresss which once was the country seat of the Earl of Leicester Queen Elizabeth I’s “favourite”. Read more