Distance: 13.4 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. file from Dropbox
Walk from Dorridge to Corley Moor, the source of the River Sherbourne, across the Meriden Gap more or less paralleling the Midlands Watershed, starting from Dorridge Railway Station.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
Source of the River Sherbourne
Separating the West Midlands conurbation from Coventry lies the Meriden Gap. A swathe of greenbelt land, pockmarked by low rising hills, woodland, and suburbanised villages like Balsall Common, Knowle and Hampton-in-Arden. It lies within West Midlands county but provides a semi-rural link between the two halves of Warwickshire.
The Midlands Watershed, the divide between the catchment areas of the Severn and the Trent, Great Britain’s first and second longest rivers, cuts straight through the gap, separating the basins of the River Blythe and the River Avon, which runs just south east of Coventry.
One of the tributaries of the River Avon, the Sherbourne, rises on the southern edge of Corley Moor, which lies just inside Warwickshire, but below the M6 motorway, right at the very north of the Meriden Gap.
The Sherbourne is a short river, but a very important one. It is currently being restored as part of Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s multi-million pound Sherbourne Valley Project, which seeks to restore its course and banks to a less human interfered with state. The River Sherbourne is considered Coventry’s foundational river. It was the presence of this water source which drew people in the Early Middle Ages, including the founders of the city’s first religious establishments which first put it on the map. Towards the end of the Middle Ages when Coventry in the late 14th and 15th Centuries rapidly became one of the UK’s largest cities due to a textiles boom it was the Sherbourne which washed the cloth, turned the wheels and contributed to the dyes that finished the product.
These days much of the Sherbourne through Coventry city centre is culverted and built over obscured from view. Though this is slowly starting to change. However, the upper and middle parts of the rivers course, as well as its lower reaches before its confluence with the River Sowe, just before reaching the Avon, are above ground. This includes the stretch from Corley Moor in the Meriden Gap from where the river flows swiftly into Coventry’s northern suburbs and several miles south to where it flows beneath the city centre.
Route Notes
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 Dorridge to Corley Moor, the source of the River Sherbourne, across the Meriden Gap more or less paralleling the Midlands Watershed, begins from Dorridge Railway Station.
From Dorridge Railway Station forecourt head straight, walking down Avenue Road along the side of The Forest Hotel into Dorridge’s northern suburbs.
Walk towards the north eastern edge of Dorridge along roads and out, taking care as traffic can be heavy and travel fast, along the lanes head to the right out into the Meriden Gap.
Just as passing the last houses in Dorridge you reach the A4141 where it descends from Knowle, the village the Dorridge is intertwined with, and still taking care, approach the Kings Arms pub and the bridge over the Grand Union Canal.
On the far side of the canal you continue walking straight heading further into the countryside.
Presently on the left you come to a place, just after a recently renovated large house hidden behind a high wall, where you cross the road and head down a footpath out into the fields. Soon you reach a driveway heading past a depot of some sort, which you pass heading a short way along the track deeper into the countryside.
Soon you reach a place on your left where you turn onto a well worn track, overhung with trees akin to a green lane, which leads gently uphill until you reach a lane.
Upon reaching the lane turn right and walk along the lane, which was quiet apart from a single equestrian when I walked the route on a Friday morning in late April.
After a short distance you reach a footpath waymark which points onto a field. You follow the path around the edge of the field approaching, the distant, highly unusual, and interesting, hamlet of Temple Balsall.
Before reaching Temple Balsall turn left and follow a path through and across a cemetery, before heading right up a footpath towards the church, almshouse, and school buildings that comprise Temple Balsall.
At the top of Temple Balsall turn right along a lane and walk for a short distance until you cross the road and turn left, heading into a field where you follow the Millenium Way long distance footpath towards the hamlet of Balsall Farm on the edge of the large village of Balsall Common.
Upon entering Balsall Farm turn left along the lane through the village until you reach a footpath to the right. Head right along this footpath, which is also part of the Millenium Way, heading across fields and through woodland until you climb up a hill near the West Coast Mainline.
On reaching this woodland turn right, and head out onto a lane which leads to the A452 beside the bridge over the West Coast Mainline.
Here walk along the road, straight ahead for a short distance, over the railway, until you reach a roundabout where you head to the right.
Soon you reach the HS2 construction works. These require you to follow a diversion, though the footbridge which will carry the right of way over the railway line, in due course, is already in place. This diversion’s course shifts with the construction work, and it is likely that you will need to double back on yourself, but it is quite clear.
Once past the HS2 construction works you pick up the footpath once more walking across fields and through woodland approaching Berkswell.
In the parkland opposite the big house on the edge of Berkswell you reach a junction where you turn right walking across a board walk to approach Berkswell’s churchyard.
Cross the churchyard passing the church to reach the village green.
Before reaching the heart of the village green turn left heading along a footpath along the edge of the churchyard to reach a road running along the northern part of the village.
Turn left here and keep walking until you reach a driveway on the right running steadily uphill past a couple of houses to reach a meadow near the hill’s summit.
Here turn left and keep walking, following footpath waymarks across meadows to reach a lane.
Cross the lane, now walking around 145 metres above sea level, and walk down a driveway, to reach a gate leading onto a meadow.
Cross the meadow and on the far side descend across fields, with impressive views to the left towards central Birmingham and the hilly parts of West Midlands county, heading towards the southern edge of Meriden village.
Before reaching Meriden, turn right and walk around the village’s church.
Past the church you cross a field to reach the side of the B4104 through the village.
Head over the road and descend a steep flight of concrete steps to stand beside the Queen’s Arm pub. Turn right here and follow a narrow lane for a short distance into a hamlet behind the pub.
Here pick up a footpath running behind a house across a series of fields to reach the lane again beside the bridge which carries the A45, which links Birmingham and Coventry across the Meriden Gap.
Walk beneath the A45 and continue along the road for some distance through the distended village of Eaves Green and past a caravan park.
Beyond the caravan park you reach a waterworks. Just before the waterworks you turn left down a track leading into woodland.
Follow this track through the trees for quite some distance.
After quite some way, you reach a footpath which runs uphill to the right across a meadow.
On the far side of the meadow you reach Harvest Lane which you cross, and head straight down a footpath on the far side.
You ascend the bank on the far side climbing to the top of the hill and then head right to reach a driveway.
Cross the driveway and head down the footpath across a field on the far side.
At the bottom of the hill you reach a rough track where you turn right, passing through a gate and down a house’s driveway to reach the lane. This is Watery Lane adjacent to which the River Sherbourne rises. The lane runs straight and steadily uphill to the left to reach Corley Moor.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in April 2026 Corley Moor had an infrequent bus service every day of the week apart from Sundays when there was no service. Stagecoaches bus 735 departed at 13:39 from the village centre to Coleshill and again at 16:06 to Nuneaton. Both Coleshill and Nuneaton are centres for local bus services and have train stations, Nuneaton having a busy station receiving a frequent service to destinations across the region and thanks to the West Coast Main Line’s Trent Valley branch further afield too. The 735 to Coventry called at the village at 12:53. Coventry is a major city with buses and rail services across the region and beyond. Alternatively the nearby village of Corley has a slightly more frequent service, while Kearsley a former pit village inside Coventry a couple of miles east of Corley Moor and reachable along the road from the village had frequent services to Coventry, including on Sundays and roughly every quarter hour during the week and on Satudays.