Walking East Stoke's lanes: April 2025

May 7, 2025

The month started and ended with some great weather, and we got out and walked various lanes around East Stoke in both of those good spells, and more besides.

After a busy weekend involving a long car journey to West Sussex and back it was an easy choice to get out in the lanes when the weather looked like this.

Which is how my first walk of the month ended up walking to and from my weekly yoga class in neighbouring Elston, MOH joined me for the journey there - it really was just too nice to be indoors.

It was great to see nature waking up, and to feel the sun on my skin as I walked the thirty minutes or so to the next village.

And just look how blue that sky was, an almost unbelievable blue for the start of April. But what’s almost as unbelievable is that just to the left of the tree below is the busy A46, you’d never know from the picture would you?

It was great to see the blackthorn blossom, and that prickly rambler - I’ll need to remember where this is when I’m looking for rosehips later in the year!

What a gloriously colourful start to the month, which although it would be repeated, it didn’t last and the grey skies returned, and I’ve captured the ‘ripple’ of clouds in our next venture out a couple of weeks later. This time our route took us down towards the River Trent.

And we’d clearly arrived for nettle and dandelion season - they were everywhere, even growing out of the Stoke Hall boundary wall.

It was a typical spring day, and the photo of the open gate to Stoke Hall is probably the most spring-like picture I’ve taken.

A few days later over the Easter weekend we took a brief stroll with family down to St Oswald’s Church, and I couldn’t help but be amused by the sheep that are seemingly on the top of the wall. I’m assuming the ground level is higher on the other side, as they didn’t look that precarious at all.

We snuck in a final walk on the penultimate day of the month, another warm one - but this time the sky was full of wispy clouds as we headed down Moor Lane, once again walking from the crossroads to the bend.

It was a walk where the wildlife was much in evidence, and one of the yellow wagtails obligingly perched on the top of the hedgerow for way longer than I’ve seen before - it’s reward a photo, well several actually. We spotted the hare sitting in the middle of the field shortly after that, this is a much zoomed in shot - and still it’s just the silhouette that’s visible.

The wispy clouds are cirrus clouds - I had to look it up! - and it seems they can be a sign of approaching weather changes, particularly warm fronts, which makes sense as the days after I took this photo the forecasts for the mini-heatwave.

I couldn’t end this post without some more sheep, and their lambs. These are in the field at the crossroads in East Stoke and on the warmest days sensibly spend their time under the large oak tree.

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series.

Walking East Stoke's lanes: March 2025

April 7, 2025

As I said at the end of last month’s post I knew this one would be a bit of a bumper one, and so it’s turned out with four walks under my belt this month. One of those was a guided historic walk arranged and led by St Mary Magdalene Church in Newark where we visited the ancient battlefield and saw the memorial Burrand Stone which is sited on private land, and we learnt so much more of the fascinating history of where we live.

But before we get to that, the month started with a walk down School Lane and onto Church Lane down to the River Trent. The big news in the village is that the WI Hall is up for sale or to let, we’ve not been here long enough to know the history but I’ve heard from people outside of the village that there’s definitely a story there, but one we’ve yet to discover. And even if/when we do it’s most definitely not my story to share, but it will be good for the hall to have an active future, so I’m hopeful for that.

Our walk took us down School Lane and into Church Lane, but don’t be fooled by the blue skies, it was chilly! Just look at the broken ice on the grass verge alongside the puddles, and this was easily mid-morning. The trees reflected in the puddles almost made up for the chill though, almost.

On reaching the River Trent I was keen to check the situation with the jetty, as you can see it was visible again in its entirety and very different to the photo I shared in January when only the tops of the posts were showing as the water levels were so high. It’s quite a difference, and it’s worth popping back to that post to check.

It was reassuring to see clumps of bulbs growing wild, with daffodils on the way with the snowdrops beginning to fade. There’s something special isn’t there about the spring bulbs, and for me especially the cheery daffodils.

As we retraced our steps towards the village, I had a quick peek at the sheep - only a quick peek as they’re quite inquisitive and stare back at you! I’m sure in the next month or so I’ll capture a lamb or two, and no doubt our village Facebook group will be reporting ‘escaped lambs’ as usual fairly soon.

Our second and fourth walks took us down Moor Lane, where we usually stop at the bridge - you’ll have seen the photo in previous posts - but with the weather warmer even for our second walk, just a week after the photos above, we carried on until the bend. Not round it, just to it!

The ditches which had been cleared last month already looked so much better for it, and more so as they started to dry out. Thankfully these skies were a fair bit warmer than those of last week’s walk down to the Trent, and the pylon surrounded by light wispy clouds looked a picture worth taking. This month was the month that the roadworks started on the A46 to add a new roundabout to connect it to the A1. We’ve eighteen months of the roadworks, which has meant much more traffic through our village as people try to find quicker routes - sadly that also means the 30mph speed limit is mostly ignored too.

The view from the bridge in Moor Lane - with green fields (albeit with a bit of mud) on the left

This month’s view from the bridge looks almost spring-like doesn’t it? There’s still a large patch of mud in the field to the left, but there is also plenty of greenery. As it was so nice we carried on walking, setting the bend as our target - in actual fact it’s not that much further, so maybe it will become our regular turning point especially on the milder days.

What I love about where we live is that there’s always something different to see on these walks - and plenty that stops me for photos. Seed heads are so structural and look great against the blue wispy clouded sky. A week later and the clouds were different again - this time much lower, and more oppressive but equally as impressive.

And while it looked like rain might be imminent, we managed to stay dry. Not only that we caught a glimpse of blackthorn blossom too, which looks kind of strange with the grey moody skies.

Which leads me onto our third walk of the month, the guided walk I mentioned before. We were extremely lucky with the weather as it was another glorious day - I’d seen that a previous iteration of this walk took place in the autumn and the day wasn’t great, in fact it was very wet. I was so glad I hadn’t booked onto that one!

Yes, I’m mostly a fair weather walker through choice - though at times, you don’t always get that choice.

Quite a lot of this walk took place on private grounds with access from the farmer as arranged by the church, so while I can tell you our walk started from School Lane - the WI hut from the first picture - most of it won’t strictly be lanes.

As well as getting fantastic views across the landscape we were led to the place where it is believed that Henry VII placed his standard after the Battle of Stoke - the last battle in the War of the Roses. It’s said that here a Burrand Bush was planted, and much later that’s been marked with this stone. I’d heard of its existence, and am grateful to the farmer for providing access so that I could see it, a piece of history that not many people will see.

Of course for their to be a battle there needed to be opponents and its thought that they made their camp up towards the horizon in the photo below - not that it’s known for sure, or that you’d know it from my photo either. It looks a serene, quiet place doesn’t it?

It’s thought that many of those fighting for the contenders of the throne here back in 1847 lost their lives in the retreat over that horizon, which has a mighty drop into a ravine on the other side, which is known locally as the Red Gutter. Some say it’s name is from the river of blood, others say it’s from the colour of the soil there - the first sounds a lot more grisly though doesn’t it.

We walked along to the public footpath which took us down to the River Trent and walked across the field where we’ve walked many times before (though usually the other way!) this time knowing much more of the history of the site.

But not before noticing this large branch which had clearly come down in the wind (and travelled a fair distance too) and before crossing a large muddy area across the path, which wasn’t ideal for the mud-hating me. But grimacing and slipping through it was the only way. It was great to hear more about our very local history, and if you ever get the chance to go on that guided walk in the future, do - it’s most definitely worth it.

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series.

Walking East Stoke's lanes: February 2025

March 5, 2025

Last month’s post ended with a greyest of grey days shot looking from the bridge on Moor Lane, what I didn’t know then was that February would continue to be grey, and then some. Though at least it’s a short month, and well there wasn’t much more to say about the month until the very end when the sun did start to show itself.

So once again there was only one venture out - we have a couple of set routes, and it all depends on whether we go left or right at the crossroads, which can often be a last minute decision, though it can also be based on footwear!

We set off early afternoon, when we were hoping that the temperatures would be at their highest - and after a round of watching Six Nations matches on the TV and ahead of watching Liverpool in the FA Cup, it was good to get out and stretch our legs. We opted for a road-based walked, heading once again down Moor Lane. Our choice was rewarded by the flowering gorse as we followed the road as it rose up over the A46.

As we walked down the other side of the A46 I paused as the area alongside the bridle path (and the path to Elston) looked different, with several of the bare, twiggy shrubs down. MOH hadn’t noticed, but I think that’s one of the things that these posts do is make me more aware of my surroundings, which I’m grateful for. Looking again it was clear that some large machinery had been amongst the still-standing shrubs.

It wasn’t until we were a little further along that it became apparent why, some work had clearly taken place to clear the ditches which run alongside the fields, as they were also looking much clearer, with much less debris - and no doubt this is part of the management of the area to catch water draining off the fields and generally manage its flow safely. And to my non-qualified eye, it looks a job well done.

But it really was grey, even the buzzing electricity pylon agreed.

But at least my photo from the bridge was slightly less grey than MOH’s photo which I ended on last month - though you can still see it’s pretty grey, and murky!

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series. It’s less than a week into the month and I’ve already got one walk under my belt, and have booked onto a guided talk and walk for next week, so I already know there’s going to be content for next month, so I hope to see you then!