Distance: 7.1 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

Walk in the southwestern most corner of Northamptonshire from Kings Sutton Railway Station to Brackley, a market town with a Cotswolds feel, which perhaps unsurprisingly is home to the only “offical” Cotswolds Morris side in the eastern Midlands.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Visit Banburyshire

Like any region, the Midlands is as defined by its hinterlands as its centre. A case in point is the area encompassing the southernmost part of Warwickshire, southwest Northamptonshire and northern Oxfordshire known colloquially as “Banburyshire”.

Banburyshire sounds like a pale early 21st Century Chiltern Railways, M40 and Bicester Retail Village catchment area version of Metroland, an archipelago of no-longer rural, but still far from urban, extension and infill estates facing south towards London extending from Amersham and High Wickham all the way up to the Leamington – Warwick conurbation and Solihull.

There is however, a genuine antiquity to the term. Banburyshire has been used as a self-descriptor in the north eastern Cotswolds and the topographically similar adjacent areas of gentle limestone uplands and wolds running into Northamptonshire for generations. 

Today Oxfordshire where Banbury is situated, right at the north eastern corner of the county, is unambiguously considered part of South Eastern England. However, up until the 20th Century, prior to Oxfordshire’s boundaries expanding southwards in the 1970s when it absorbed a large northerly chunk of Berkshire, it was often considered a Midlands county and grouped with Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, which at the time it culturally, socially and topographically bore a strong resemblance to. Banburyshire as a term – despite its modern connotations – harks back to this.

Traces of this past affinity, and ongoing interconnections, can be seen in the culture of the area. Whether in centuries old market houses, crosses and churches or in the advent since the opening of the M40 and improvements to the Chiltern Mainline (not to mention the growth and growth of the aforementioned Bicester Shopping Village…) the area’s emergence as a prime dormitory for London and the wider South East. And also in the form that folk customs ancient and modern take.

Brackley, a town now of about 20,000 people, situated right at Northamptonshire’s southwesternmost toe, is a case in point. Once a wealthy, distinctly Cotswolds seeming, agricultural centre, and later a minor railway town, now it is an affluent (though far cheaper than anywhere actually in London or the Home Counties) commuter and homeworker honeypot. Its edges are fringed by new estates constructed in a committed but pretty generic, pastiche of traditional Cotswolds and Northamptonshire cottages.

One ancient Banburyshire tradition from ages past which survives, however, is the town’s Cotswolds Morris side. A civic organisation which today is recognised by Morris Dancing’s powers that be as only one of seven “authentic” Cotswolds Morris sides in the country. A reminder of this most southwesterly corner of the eastern Midlands historic ties and interconnections to the lands lying to its west. 

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

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 to Brackley, home of Northamptonshire’s only surviving “original” Cotswolds Morris side begins from Kings Sutton Railway Station.

Exit Kings Sutton Railway Station and follow the road running into the village.

After some distance you reach a village green with a post office off to the left.

At the village green take a road heading off to the left.

Keep on walking uphill, along this road to the right as it runs through the houses around the centre of Kings Sutton.

Presently off to the right there is a footpath running behind the backs of houses. Turn right and follow this path.

Soon it comes out beside a village green. Keep walking down the road beside the village green.

At the bottom of the road next to the village hall you come to a main road running along the base of the village green.

Here turn left and follow this road along the bottom of the green.

Keep on walking after you reach the bottom of the green carrying on down the road.

After some distance there is a driveway off to the right just after a copse of fir trees running towards some former farm buildings. Turn down this track.

At the bottom of this driveway just after a large modern house shaped like a traditional farm there is a path running off to the right behind it.

Turn down this path and then almost immediately turn left following a wide track downhill towards a patch of woodland.

Walk through this woodland and straight out onto a field.

Cross this field walking straight ahead along a path hugging close to the hedgerow on the left.

Near the top of the field there is a gap in the hedgerow to the left with a well worn path running across the field.

Turn right once through the hedge and follow this path uphill.

It is worth looking back near the top of the hill for the view back towards Kings Sutton and across the Cherwell Valley.

At the top of the hill there is a line of trees forming a field boundary. Turn right and cross this line into the field beyond.

Keep walking downhill.

Presently the path runs off to the left.

Upon reaching a hedgerow turn left again. Keep on following the path, as it runs along the top of a wold type valley, then straight across fields.

Presently at a small thicket the path heads off to the right.

Continue walking straight ahead for quite some distance.

Soon the top of the village of Charlton nestled amongst trees comes into view.

Follow the path downhill towards, and through, a thicket.

On the far side of the thicket there is a footbridge over a stream which you cross.

On the far side of the bridge start walking uphill heading to the left.

At the top of the hill head through a gap between two houses heading towards a stile next to the Rose and Crown pub.

Cross over the stile and head onto the main road through Charlton. Once on the road turn left walking past The Rose and Crown pub.

Keep on walking straight up the road through the village.

Presently you come to a junction with a road running off to the left towards the edge of the village. Take this right hand turning.

Soon on the left there is a footpath sign pointing down a snicket between two houses. Cross the road here and walk down the snicket.

Follow the path as it runs along the line of a set of back gardens and the edge of the fields.

Approaching a copse follow the path as it runs through the trees.

This leads out onto a playing field. Once in the playing field turn right walking towards the top of the field where there is a basketball hoop.

A little beyond the basketball hoop turn right, making for a stile set in a line of trees.

Across the stile you reach a gate. Here turn right, and follow a footpath as it runs along a narrow gap between a hedgerow and a fence.

Soon you reach a stile leading out onto a green lane.

Once on the green lane turn left and keep walking straight ahead up the lane.

Presently you approach a narrow country road.

Upon reaching the road turn right and begin walking along passing scattered houses on each side of the road.

The road leads you to an entrance onto Hinton-in-the-Hedges airfield. Upon reaching the airfield enter the grounds walking straight ahead across a patch of tarmac.

Enter a patch of grass with a footpath running straight ahead along the line of the hedge. Keep on this path for some distance.

Soon you come to the end of a hedgerow dividing two fields. Here take the path running on the left hand side of this hedgerow.

Upon reaching a waymarking post turn to the left following a strip of grass around the edge of another field.

Presently you reach a crumbling, but quite wide, tarmac road running along the edge of a field. On reaching the road turn right and follow it.

Soon you leave the fields for a tarmacked, car park or storage type area surrounded by trees and other plant growth. Here head to the left following a tarmac road.

After a short distance you cross the bottom of the Hinton-in-the-Hedges airfield. 

Keep walking straight ahead, taking a tarmac road off to the right on the far side of the airfield.

Having walked a short distance along the track you come to a junction. Here turn right following a bridleway type path along the edge of the fields for some distance.

Presently you reach a road on the western edge of the village of Hinton-in-the-Hedges. Upon arriving at the road turn right following it into the village.

Soon you reach a junction where you turn right walking downhill towards the village green.

Pass the village green on the left walking towards the main road running through the middle of the village.

Upon reaching the main road turn left, taking care, walking along the side of the road walking out of Hinton-in-the-Hedges.

As the road begins running uphill look out on the left hand side for a footpath waymark. Upon reaching it, cross the road and climb a stile heading into a field.

Once in the field turn and walk uphill across the field towards a farm on the brow of the hill.

Upon getting level with the farm there is a gate leading into a small paddock. Walk through this gate and cross the paddock making for a small gate out onto a track leading to the farm. Upon reaching the track pass through the gate walking straight ahead, towards another gate.

This leads into a further paddock which you cross making for a final gate. After walking through the gate keep walking straight ahead heading downhill. In front of you on the other side of a gently sloping valley lies the town of Brackley where this walk ends.

Presently on your left there is a foot gate leading to a stile into another field to the left a little further down the slope.

After crossing the stile walk straight ahead downhill across a large field heading for the outskirts of Brackley.

At the bottom of the hill you come to a wooden footbridge across a stream. Having crossed the bridge you walk through a small thicket climbing a bank up towards the side of the busy A422 road.

Cross the A422 road making for a footpath up a short, steep, bank on the far side of the road.

This leads through a thicket and down onto a footpath across a brand new estate.

The path turns into a cul-de-sac which you walk along. At the top of a cul-de-sac there is a gap in a hedge with a path running down a bank onto the trackbed of one of the railway lines which once served Brackley.

Walk across the former trackbed and up the bank on the far side. This leads to a narrow snicket running uphill onto a main road, lined with houses, running towards Brackley town centre.

Upon reaching the road turn right and walk along the road for some distance into Brackley town centre.

Presently right on the edge of the town centre you come to a junction. Here, turn left walking towards Brackley’s distinctive, and very Cotswolds looking, Town Hall, which stands in the middle of the town’s historic core on the high street.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Brackley is served by the 500 bus (which was hourly at the time of writing in June 2023) running south towards Bicester Railway Station and north towards Banbury. The final bus towards Bicester departed just after 18:00 and the final bus to Banbury just after 19:00. There are less frequent services, generally of little use to a walker, unless they reach Brackley prior to the middle of the day, to Northampton and Buckingham.