Arnrai two

Verified Slow Way

Verified by 100.00% of reviewers

I walked this path from Arnold. For the most part it was enjoyable. After the unseasonably wet autumn so far it was very muddy in places. There are good views around the Dorket Head / Woodborough Parish section, and the Fox Wood has the humps and hollows of an iron age fort. Unfortunately, no tea shack on Longdale Lane in winter ! This is a very good addition to the slow-way network. Only the roadside section leaving Calverton marrs the route, but at least there is a wide verge to step onto when required.

The northern section of this walk is mostly on excellent surfaced tracks so easy walking and navigation with no fields of cattle or stiles to contend with. While the tracks are not recorded as public footpath they are on access land so we have a right to use them on foot with some limits for closure at certain times. The terrain is gently up and down. Forestry operations approaching Calverton were moving on with some tiny new saplings evident, just.

There was a mobile tea bar in the car park at Longdale Lodge and services in Calverton just off route. Plus all services at Blidworth close to the northern meeting place.

Approaching Calverton there is a section of road walking with no pavement and in places only a narrow verge. A rather pointless path in the field on the dead end section of road would be more useful closer to the village.

Look out for the record of Calveron's famous vicar, William Lee, his invention in 1589 was as contentious as artificial intelligence is today. The paths from here are rights of way but still no stiles only gates and one grass field which had no stock when I passed. The countryside is now hillier but it's not the Peak District, Dumbles they are called around here.

The walk around the clay pit was interesting for a first visit and I spotted that the Trig Pillar still stands but will vanish when the excavations start. The approach to Arnold is direct and easy to navigate buses terminate on the edge of the urban area should you wish to miss out this pavement walking.

I walked this from Arnold to Rainworth before submitting it, on an overcast but fairly mild winter day. Not a five star route because of its indirectness and a short section of road walking with no pavement, but there are some very enjoyable sections. I walked most of it as per the GPX, but I was also searching for a non-existent more direct route into the access land on the old Calverton colliery site, which meant I used a slightly different route north of Calverton which I wouldn't recommend because the B6386 is more unpleasant than Main Street and also lacks a pavement. I was also forced to make a small detour in the wood by Gravelly Hollow due to forestry operations, but normally the main track is the easiest line to follow. The route has no stiles but there are a few steps and a bit of rough ground. It also involves quite a lot of ups and downs.

Leaving the meeting point in Arnold, we follow Worrall Avenue to its end and continue through a surfaced alleyway to Coppice Road, where we cross and turn right (if it is busy there is a pelican crossing a little further left). We take the next surfaced alleyway left to Killisick Road, where we turn right and follow it around a long bend and up the hill. We continue up Killisick Lane and go straight on up the bridleway where the road turns right into Howbeck Road. The bridleway reaches a junction where we go straight on a short distance until we reach the fence guarding the Dorket Head claypit, which is undergoing a significant expansion which has diverted or closed a number of paths. Our route crosses a hollow and turns right to follow the southern boundary of the eventual quarry site, a small amount of which is still fields. For the most part the route is clearly signposted. Just before the path emerges on Mapperley Plains we turn left on an unsurfaced path which follows the road around the northern edge of the claypit (at one point there is a gap from which the full extent of the quarrying can be seen).

Eventually this path ends and rejoins the road, just opposite the footpath which we take (unsurfaced but not too muddy), which follows the edges of fields steeply into the valley which continues through Woodborough. Once we reach valley level we follow a farm track down along the stream, and then over the bridge to the left past Woodborough Park, then leaving the road to follow the waymarked field path up through Fox Wood (which has an iron age hill fort) then right a short distance along the bridleway. Our route follows the field path left, initially along the field edge, then into the trees on what in places is almost a holloway, which we follow between a building site and the school. At the bottom the path left has been closed, so we go right and then left at the school entrance to join Main Street. There are shops just off route to the right, but we turn left along Main Street, passing the Admiral Rodney pub.

We follow Main Street out of the village (the final part lacks a pavement so take care). At the Oxton Road crossroads we go straight on onto Gravelly Hollow, which is no longer a through road so is only used by visitors to the woods, which makes it safe to walk on. A field path relieves the monotony of the tarmac walking, and once in the wood there is a profusion of paths that offers many minor variant routes. I have chosen the main forest road as that is the easiest to follow, but I felt obliged to deviate a little when confronted by a forestry lorry that was chipping large branches in the middle of the track. Eventually we head down a side track to the left which emerges on the A614.

Here we cross to find a well-trodden path on the far verge, which we follow a short way left and then head right along the edge of the field. Once you reach the corner of the wood it is easiest to take the path just inside the fence and follow it around to the left. Where the right of way heads into the wood we follow it a short distance, then take the little path left that follows the power lines through a narrow fire break. This leads to an obvious forest track, which we follow half right, then down over the old colliery railway to Longdale Lane, which we cross and continue on a path just left of the junction. Where this joins a clear track we turn right, following it to a crossroads where we turn left onto the Robin Hood Way, which we follow for some distance until it emerges on Blidworth Lane.

Here we turn left. There is no pavement but the road is normally fairly quiet, mostly used by dog walkers using the Blidworth Bottoms car park. Soon we turn right, following the Robin Hood Way up a surfaced but rough byway (there is a pub just off route a little further up Blidworth Lane/Calverton Road). This lane goes up the hill and emerges in Blidworth, joining Beck Lane where we go straight on then turn right at the war memorial onto Main Street. We follow Main Street and Mansfield Road up the hill and out of the village. We head right on a signposted path that goes down steps into the Tippings Wood nature reserve. We follow the right of way on a fairly straight course to reach Rainworth, where we cross Mansfield Road and turn left, following the pavement down to the meeting point at the junction with Southwell Road.

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