Distance: 6.5 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

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

Urban, suburban, then rural walk, skirting some of Coventry’s interesting historic common land and ending up at Berkswell and overtly picturesque village in Solihull’s Meridan Gap.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

“Town in Country”

Walking into the centre of Berkswell you get a shock. It feels like the quintessential Warwickshire village, yet at the crossroads upon which the evocatively named Bear Inn stands, if you look to the right, prominent upon the bus stop – where in common with many villages across the Midlands no bus currently call – stands the distinctive red diamond roundel of the West Midlands Combined Authority.

This is because in common with the rest of the rural area between Coventry and Solihull known as the Meridian Gap, since 1974 Berkswell has formed part of West Midlands county. Meaning that despite its rural feel, and somewhat pointed feeling, country village presentation, Berkswell is firmly within the second largest urban area in the UK.

The village stands only six and half miles from the centre of Coventry, and only a couple of miles from the western edge of the Coventry urban area. It is this fact of geography which ensured Berkswell’s inclusion in West Midlands. Albeit in the almost entirely suburbanised, relatively lightly populated Borough of Solihull, motto “town in country”, (the urban core of which is further away from Berkswell than Coventry is) as opposed to the City of Coventry.

St. John the Baptist, the village’s church, has a 12th Century core and numerous Early Modern additions, as well as a solid recent extension in the muddy red sandstone that defines the area’s geology. The church’s interior is impressive too, with an unusual crypt beneath it which is readily visitable whenever the church is open.

Just outside the churchyard, behind the cluster of old buildings which define the centre of the otherwise quietly suburban feeling village of Berkswell, stands a brick and stone sided trough. This purportedly is the well from which Berkswell derives its name. Supposedly at one time this large outdoor basin was used to perform outdoor baptisms. 

Other deliberately quaint features of the village include a set of stocks, supposedly only with five foot holes because one of the first inmates to be confined there was a one legged former soldier. There are also several houses, some still half timbered, others outwardly more modern looking, which partially date back to the later part of the middle ages. Just south of the village stands the Berkswell Windmill. Built on the site of an earlier mill in 1826 it worked for around a century, finally being decommissioned in 1948, by which time windmills were rare enough to be considered picturesque. Today while it no longer grinds materials to powder, the machinery which operated the mill is still in place.

In this way today, Berkswell, despite sitting near the West Coast Mainline and several trunk roads, only a matter of miles from two of the largest urban areas in the Midlands, feels pointedly bucolic. There are plenty of reasons why this was not the case, largely due to Berskwell’s distance from any significance waterways (even though the size of the Rea, Sherbourne, Stour or Tame), and raw materials like coal, but it is possible to imagine an alternative history where Berkswell grew to be a great city, and Birmingham, stuck in the middle of the Erdington or King’s Norton Gap, between Berkswell and the Black Country, is now a pretty little village with a tiny preserved cattle pen stood beside the picturesque St. Martin’s Church.

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 Coventry to Berkswell begins from Coventry Railway Station.

Upon exiting onto the station forecourt, walk straight ahead passing the new Friargate office complex.

Just past the office buildings walk straight ahead across an access road for Coventry’s mighty inner ring road which runs beneath your feet.

Continue walking down the road past a green toward Coventry city centre.

Look out on your left for a road running off to the left, past a Victorian era statue set in a small park-like area. There is a pedestrian island in the middle of the road which you can use to cross.

Continue along this road for some distance, part way down it curves around to the right.

Here in front of you, you see the tall disused building which used to house Coventry’s city centre branch of IKEA. During Coventry’s stint as UK City of Culture it was mentioned that it might be repurposed as a national gallery space for the Arts Council Collection, but this has yet to come to pass.

Cross over the road once you are level with the disused IKEA, then turn right and keep walking straight past the Town Crier pub.

Almost immediately after the Town Crier pub, turn left onto Spon Street.

Walk straight along Spon Street a tall 1960s vintage tower block looms high in the near distance on the other side of Coventry inner ring road. Spon Street is notable for the extensive conservation and repair efforts which were put into some medieval and early modern vintage buildings along it in the post-war period when much of inner Coventry was extensively redeveloped. This makes it one of Coventry’s oldest, and oldest appearing, roads.

At the end of Spon Street approaching the inner ring road off to the right there are some steps down to a subway. Head down these steps and walk through the subway.

On the far side of the subway keep walking straight down the road, past the tower block visible on Spon Street and the now disused, but quite interesting, Spon End estate.

Carry on walking approaching another tower block and the bridge, next to the ruins of the St. James and St. Christopher Church, across the River Sherbourne.

Continue until you reach the mouth of the road you have been walking along, where it joins the B4106.

Here turn right and walk along the B4106. After a short distance you pass underneath the viaduct which carries the railway line to Bedworth and Nuneaton across the road.

Continue on the far side of the viaduct along the B4106. Carry on walking for quite some distance, crossing over the busy junction where the B4106 crosses the B4017.

Carry on walking for a short distance after crossing the B4017. Soon you pass The Maudslay pub, part of the Sizzling Pub chain.

Just past the pub, cross the road and turn left onto The Maudslay Road passing a corner shop and a quite garish and rather grand carpet showroom. 

Walk all the way up Maudslay Road.

Right at the top of the road there is a cut through off to the left.

This leads across the fringe of Hearsall Common. This is a fascinating medieval survival. Once part of Coventry’s civic patrimony of common land, enjoyed by the free people of the city, but incorporated as a park and recreation ground in the late 1920s by the City Council preserving it. Parts of the fringes are heavily wooded and act as nature reserve. 

Walk along a path through the woodland across the edge of Hearsall Common.

Soon you reach the side of the busy B4101 which runs across the Common. Here, turn right and begin walking along the road.

You follow the B4101 for a long way walking towards the edge of Coventry.

After quite some distance you cross the busy A45, here called the Fletchampsted Highway, by a set of traffic lights. On the far side continue along the B4101 on the far side passing the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant.

Some distance further on, walking through the suburb of Lower Eastern Green, the pavement becomes slightly set back from the road, more akin to a footpath, running through woodland, though still with houses to the right.

Presently this section comes to an end and you continue walking straight along the road approaching the edge of Coventry.

Just after passing a mid-20th Century vintage factory or former garage unit which now houses a boxing gym you approach a couple of bus stops.

Here off to the left, on the left hand side of the road there is a road, Hawthorn Lane. Turn left here and head down Hawthorn Lane.

Walk down Hawthorn Lane past Woodfield School.

Just past the school you approach the end of the road. Here there is woodland straight ahead and to your right. This comprises part of Tilehill Wood. Tilehill Wood is another part of Coventry’s medieval patrimony, former common woodland, which in a far sighted act of conservation Coventry City Council formally took into the Council’s care in the 1920s, preserving it in an early act of conservation. It has a feel not unlike other patches of ancient woodland in the Midlands including parts of Sherwood Forest.

Here there is a gateway on the right leading into the woodland.

Once through the gateway turn right and follow a well worn path a short distance north towards the edge of the woodland.

Here you come upon another wide, well worn path running along the edge of the woodland, next to the Woodfield School playing fields. 

Upon reaching this path turn left and follow the path for quite some distance through the trees.

After walking for a while heading straight along the edge of Tilehill Woods you come to a gateway leading out onto the side of Banner Lane.

Cross the road here onto the side of the road where a recently built housing estate stands.

On the far side of the road turn left and walk down the road.

Soon you come to a road running off to the right onto a road running across the estate.

Turn right and follow this road right across the estate.

At the bottom of the estate right on the edge of the Coventry built up area and council district, turn left and approach the entrance to the Massey Ferguson Sports Ground. The club and the name are a relic of Coventry’s past (and indeed present) as a major hub for automotive manufacturing.

Here there is a gateway leading onto a track across the sports ground.

Walk through this gateway and head along the track which leads past the Massey Ferguson clubhouse.

A little way past the clubhouse the track peters out. At this point continue along a fairly clear footpath along the edge of the playing field.

Upon reaching the far side of the field there is a hedgerow with a wooden plank bridge leading to a stile out onto a field. Cross the stile and enter the field. 

Follow the footpath along the edge of the field, approaching a muddy gateway into an adjacent field.

On reaching the bottom of the field and this gateway walking straight across (a highly muddy section when I walked the route in mid-February 2024) and keep on walking across the large field on the far side.

Continue walking along the footpath alongside the hedgerow, it is quite a large field so you walk for some time.

Presently you reach a hedgerow on the far side. 

Here on the right there is a metal gateway. Turn right and walk through it.

Carry on along the well worth path on the far side. This leads through a thicket towards the back of Benton Green lane Farm.

Here you find a snicket leads past the largely rotted remains of an old railway goods car alongside the edge of the farmyard.

The snicket leads onto the side of a quiet country lane. Here, turn right and begin walking along the lane.

Carry on along the lane a short distance.

Soon off on the left there is a driveway leading towards a small cluster of houses, part of a hamlet called Benton Green. Turn left and walk down this driveway.

At the bottom by the cluster of houses there is a field. A gateway leading out onto it off to the left.

Just past the gate there is a footpath running to the right across the field towards a stand of trees.

Here there is a metal gate leading across the line of a hedgerow thick with trees into another field.

Follow the footpath across this field too.

On the far side there is another stand of trees and a hedgerow.

In the middle of this runs a green lane. Once on the green lane turn right and walk a very short distance towards a metal gate on the left which leads out into another far larger field.

Walk steadily downhill along the well worn footpath across this field.

Approaching the bottom the roofs of 1960s vintage era houses on the edge of Berkswell come into view.

Upon reaching the far side of the field turn right and follow the line of a fence down towards the main Coventry Road into Berkswell.

Upon reaching the Coventry Road turn right and follow it downhill into the centre of the village.

Soon you pass the Bear Inn, its sign resplendent with Warwickshire’s county arms the bear and staff.

Cross over here and carry on a little further to reach the village green.

Upon reaching the village green, turn right to walk past the village shop and cafe to the church of St. John the Baptist just in front of which stands the Berks Well.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Berkswell is situated just north of Berkswell Station (on the edge of the much larger village of Balsall Common). Currently trains stopping at Berkswell run half hourly south back towards Coventry, and then via Rugby and Northmpton to London. Northbound trains call at Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street. At the time of writing in February 2024, despite having bus stops, Berkswell is without bus services.