Distance: 5 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps
Varied walk across rural south east Staffordshire to Abbots Bromley, home of the highly distinctive and famous annual Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Six Reindeer, Maid Marion, A Hobby Horse and a Fool For Starters
Abbots Bromley is typical of the quiet, generally affluent, villages scattered across the gently hilly, lighted wooded countryside of south east Staffordshire between the Trent and the Dove.
In some circles at least Abbots Bromley has great national prominence. This is solely for one reason: the annual Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.
Taking place over one day each year in early September the horn dance is a distinctive custom, quite different from the folk customs practised elsewhere in the village.
For 364 days of the year, the Abbots Bromley horns are stored safely in the village church. Then on the day of the dance they are retrieved at 7:30 in the morning, where the priest blesses them, before they are taken out ahead of the day’s dancing.
The six horn carriers are dressed in colourful vaguely Tudor looking costumes (though apparently they only date from the 1850s…) including wide flat caps. They are accompanied on their journey by a fool, a man dressed as Maid Marion (we are north of the Trent here after all), a hobby horse and a small troupe of minstrels including a boy carrying a triangle.
Over the course of the day this possession covers around 10 miles. Following a route which runs roughly around the village. Along the way the troupe makes 12 stops where they dance.
The rhyme or reason for why the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance began are obscure. Some see it as an ancient pagan survival, others, due to the fact that it is not recorded in any form until an entry appears in Robert Plot’s Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686. Although there is an earlier account of a hobby horse at Abbots Bromley from 1532 which may suggest an earlier origin.
Ever since it was first written up by Robert Plot, folklorists of all descriptions have been fascinated by the strangeness and unique qualities of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. It was extensively documented in the 19th and early 20th Centuries with the earliest photographs of the dancers dating from around 1900.
Naturally this has led to all sorts of sloothery in an attempt to unpick the mystery. One of the most interesting of these in the recent past was the radiocarbon dating of the horns. The results of this – of course – do nothing to authenticate the age of the dance, but it does shed light upon when the horns grew on a living animal.
It transpires that they are reindeer horns, dating back to the 11th Century, so nearly 1,000 years. How they came to be in a small Staffordshire village is a mystery, they were presumably traded for at some point in the last millenium, because just like today the only place where reindeer lived in the 11th Century was Scandinavia.
Does this point to a Norse origins for the horn dance, contrary to it often being assumed to have been an Anglo Saxon rite? Potentially given that the area Abbots Bromley sits in was amongst the westernmost reaches of Viking control in the Midlands. Although personally I think it is as likely that the dance is later medieval and or early modern and some antique reindeer horns got incorporated into it at some stage.
But of course, we’ll never know. Only that the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is a longstanding Midlands custom, one of the region’s most distinctive, its origins shrouded in mystery. Long may it continue to be adapted and performed.
The Walk
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This walk to Abbots Bromley, home of the unique and renowned Abbots Bromley Horn Dance performed each September, begins at Rugeley Trent Valley Railway Station.
Rugeley is a former coal mining down, largely developed in the mid-20th Century, just north of Cannock Chase. Its good railway links to Birmingham and the West Coast Mainline as well as the road network via the M6 Toll, has meant that it has moved on from coal more cleanly than many comparable towns. The last substantive traces of Rugeley’s coal mining past vanished in the summer of 2021 with the demolition of the disused Rugeley B Power Station which sat on the River Trent. As this walk takes place north of the Trent – just about – it can be firmly classified as occurring in the north Midlands.
Upon arriving at Rugeley Trent Valley Railway Station exit onto the station’s access road.
Follow it for a short distance until you come to a junction with a main road.
At this junction turn left, then soon turn left again heading along a road running back past the station.
Just past the station on the right hand side of the road there is a footpath waymark pointing to a path leading into a field.
Follow this path for a short distance. Presently it curves sharply to the left leading into another field.
Keep following the path as it runs straight across the field in the direction of two tall electricity transmission pylons.
Just after the first pylon turn right, following the path as it runs towards a hedgerow.
Cross the hedge and keep on the path as it runs between two fences dividings pasture type fields.
At the end of this stretch walk through a gateway and follow the path into a meadow to the left.
Follow the path across the field.
Beyond a line of trees the path turns into a semi-paved track.
Presently the track forks. Here take the left hand fork following the track towards the outskirts of the village of Colton.
After a gate follow a driveway style track between houses for some distance until you reach the main road through the field.
It is flanked with large, grand 18th Century style houses. Typically of the affluent rural villages found in the Lichfield District where you are walking.
Upon reaching the main road turn right. Walk along the road through the centre of the village for a short distance.
Soon off on the left there is a road running uphill. Turn left and follow this road, which runs through a 20th Century extension to Colton, for some distance.
Presently, just after passing the Ye Olde Dun Cow pub, turn left off the main road.
Follow the road as initially it runs through more of Colton’s 20th Century outskirts. Then soon enough the road turns into a narrow semi-paved green lane.
After some distance, you rejoin a more substantial lane. Here, turn left and walk along the road some way.
You come to a junction where a semi-paved lane branches off to your right. Here, turn right and walk along the semi-paved lane.
This track leads towards Park Barn Farm. Just before you reach the farm yard the track forks. Here take the left hand fork a short distance until you come to a stile waymarked for the Staffordshire Way.
Cross the stile, entering the field, and follow the footpath along the line of the hedgerow.
Keep following the path as it runs steadily uphill crossing stiles and other field boundaries as you go.
Presently you reach the brow of the hill. Here off to the right there is a stile which you cross.
This point marks the boundary between Lichfield and East Staffordshire Districts. Once across the stile keep heading to the left following the footpath along the line of the hedge.
Presently you cross a field boundary marked by a fence. On the other side turn left and follow the fence line in the direction of a desolate barn.
Approaching the barn you get glimpses of Blithfield Reservoir, a large reservoir, just south of Abbots Bromley constructed in the 1950s – by the unusual South Staffordshire Water Company – to supply water to communities in the Black Country, south eastern Staffordshire and south Derbyshire.
Upon reaching the barn, cross the farmyard type area around it. Then heading over a stile walking downhill across a meadow and slightly to the right.
At the bottom of the slope you come to stile leading out onto a farm style track.
Having crossed the stile and reached the track, turn right and walk along the track for some distance.
Presently off to your left there is a stile. This leads to a path which runs through woodland coming out at another stile into a meadow.
Once in the meadow turn left following the path as it runs besides a hedgerow.
After crossing another hedgerow to enter a further meadow, turn right and follow the line of a stream flowing from one of Blithfield Reservoir’s outfalls.
Approaching the reservoir to your right there is a bridge across the stream. Walk up the bank to the level of the bridge and walk across it.
On the far side of the bridge keep walking straight ahead following a track as it runs across fields.
Keep on this track for some distance.
Presently the track peters out and off to your left there is a stile which you cross, then walking across the meadow on the far side.
This leads out just above the reservoir’s sailing club. Once on the road leading down to the sailing club turn right, walking towards a small cluster of mid-20th Century houses.
Presently this leads out into a pasture. Here turn right and walk across the field heading for a hedgerow. Here take the right hand side of the hedge, walking with the hedge to your left. Keep walking following the line of this hedge until you reach a stile. Cross the stile and keep walking straight ahead following the line of the hedge once you are on the other side.
You reach a stile in a thick hedgerow which you cross. On the far side walk along a clearly marked path delineated by two fences.
This brings you to by another stile set in a thick hedge.On the other side of this hedge you cross a field reaching a lane. Once on the lane turn right and keep walking along the lane until there is a stile on your left. Cross this stile and walk across the field on the other side.
This leads you out onto a semi-paved track. Once on the track turn right and walk up it for some distance passing Abbot Bromley’s sewage works.
A short way past the sewage works there is a stile off to the left. Cross this stile and walk straight across a small slither of field making for a stile and a bridge immediately in front of you.
Once over the stile and bridge turn right and walk straight ahead across a meadow. The edge of Abbott’s Bromley, including the church where the horn dance antlers and other regalia are kept, is straight in front of you.
Approaching the churchyard there is a wooden stile visible to the left of the field. Turn left and walk towards it.
Once over the stile you are right on the edge of the village. Turn right and walk along the path a short distance through some trees passing through a low, white painted gate.
This leads you to the churchyard. Once in the churchyard, walk uphill towards the church.
Walk around the church and then turn right passing the end of the nave. The path runs towards a wooden lychgate.
Once through the lychgate follow a short lane uphill past a few quaint looking houses out onto Abbot Bromley village green.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Abbot Bromley is not well served by public transport. On weekdays (at the time of writing in May 2023) there are three buses a day passing through Abbot Bromley to Burton-on-Trent which is a major bus hub for Staffordshire and the south east Midlands, as well as having trains on the Birmingham – Derby line. Four buses a day head north to Uttoxeter, the second largest settlement in East Staffordshire. Uttoxeter also has trains – on the Derby – Stoke-on-Trent line, and a reasonable array of bus services.