Chamar one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Chamar here.

Overall I did not particularly enjoy all of this route. There is a significant section between Chatteris and Doddington which I feel is not safe and has access concerns, and I personally will not walk this exact route again and I wouldn't recommend it to others. Having said that, I have decided to give the route 3 stars because there are more enjoyable sections and enough overall to make a route between Chatteris and March to be interesting and worthwhile.

I walked from Chatteris to March and used a combination of a paper OS Explorer map and the downloaded route GPX file with the OS Maps app to plan and navigate the route. In general, the route was accurate with just a few very minor deviations required, and it took me 3.5 hours from start to finish.

The walk starts at the clock on the corner of the junction between Chatteris High Street and Railway Lane, and the first section follows a pavement on the High Street (photo 1). After you pass Aldi and reach a main roundabout you cross the busy A142 at an island and follow a pavement beside the carriageway until turning left into Fenton Way Industrial Estate (photo 2). [Note: there is an alternative to this first part of the route, by taking Furrowfields Lane past Chatteris Library until you reach the playing field and going into the field beyond and following a path on the left to reach the A142, then a footpath to the left follows the road and eventually you can cross at the Fenton Way junction.]

There is a straight road through the industrial estate which carries on straight on a footpath through a derelict industrial site which includes some rough ground and obstacles (photo 3), then past Willow Farm to follow a path over rough ground and through some nettles around the farm before climbing some steps up to the A141 carriageway. The route is a little inaccurate at this point, as the best bet here is to walk for about 100 metres alongside the carriageway on the narrow verge and the pavement that crosses the bridge over the Forty Foot Drain (photo 4), before clambering over the barrier and down a rough slope to be on the north side of the drain. This entire section is generally unsafe, uninviting and is clearly not regularly walked by anybody.

The next part of the route follows paths alongside or through several fields that are rough and not well maintained or marked, making it difficult to walk and navigate and again these paths are clearly not well used by the public (photo 5). You are parallel with the A141 making it unpleasant, and you have to cross this road at a point where there are no pedestrian facilities and drivers will not have any expectation of people crossing. The road is however straight and finding a time to cross was not too difficult (photo 6).

Eventually you move away from the edge of the A141 and cross a field with a barely visible path (photo 7), but there is a visible yellow post on the other side and the spire of St Mary's Church in Doddington can be seen and used as a marker for the right direction. The route now takes you into Doddington village via another industrial site with some more rough ground, but with a more clearly marked path and less uninviting than previously. You follow some residential roads into the centre of the village, walking past The Three Tuns and The George pubs, plus a shop or two if refreshment was required, to reach the clock tower at the junction with the B1093 (photo 8).

A clearly marked path as part of the Doddington Circular Walk takes you beside the Village Hall and onto the nicest part of the route. This follows some field edges and goes around a lovely stand of birch trees (photo 9), and these paths are in good use and much easier to walk. The paths here are straight but there are a lot of right angle turns with other paths heading off in different directions, so navigating requires attention but is not too difficult. Eventually you reach a large warehouse and pass around it to the left to end up in a residential side road in Wimblington. You cross the B1093 into Addison Road (photo 10) and turn left past the shop and The Anchor pub before heading down a side street and following it around a playing field to the far corner where there is a clearly marked footpath as part of the Woodman's Way. The route is a little inaccurate here as there is a small section of footpath which no longer seems to be in use due to some new houses being built. This is also not clear on the OS map, but following the road around the playing field is simple enough so you can't go wrong.

The footpath here is relatively straight and well maintained and you turn left along Bridge Lane but staying on the Woodman's Way (photo 11), then at the end of this road you turn right onto a pavement on the B1093 and follow this to another big roundabout on the A141. The route is again a little inaccurate here as it goes straight through the roundabout(!), but it is easy to follow the pavement to cross the road where there is an island, and not far ahead is a petrol station with shop and toilets if these are required. You take a left onto Mill Hill Drove (a drove is an ancient fenland farming route for moving animals) and this is firstly a decent bridleway path (photo 12) but becomes a rough track as you pass a couple of farms. The route turns right off the drove onto a footpath which because of some new house builds is currently a little unclear, but it is not too complicated to follow though a little strange to be walking down someone's driveway (photo 13).

The path brings you out on Knight's End Road, which you follow to the right to reach the B1101 road and turn left to take you into March. I made a minor deviation here to use the side road which passes beside the impressive St Wendreda's Church, and there are other small roads and lanes which could be used to walk through this corner around the other side of the church. At this point on the B1101 you go past another petrol station and The Seven Stars pub, past a large playing field and the ancient stone cross (photo 14), then more and more signs of civilisation until crossing the bridge over the River Nene and on to Broad Street to end the walk at the ornate fountain (photo 15).

My biggest concern in terms of the Slow Ways route methodology is the section from Chatteris to Doddington which I don't feel is safe, has access concerns, and is not enjoyable to walk. The full route is relatively direct but does have a significant amount of on road walking to achieve that, though most of this is on pavements or low traffic roads apart from the one unsafe section mentioned previously and shown on photo 4. There are numerous places to eat in both Chatteris and March, and along the way in both Doddington and Wimblington, and there is a B&B in Chatteris and places to stay in March. The route intersects several places where you could catch the 39 bus which goes between March and Chatteris, and these end points have buses to other locations. March also has a train station which is I think the closest one to Chatteris. The route was easy enough to navigate using OS maps, and it was at times enjoyable and beautiful (which the lovely sunny day helped with!). A few short sections used established routes but it was certainly not distracted by them. This included me seeing some markers for the Greenwich Meridian Trail which I had never previously heard of but as that line passes close by I wasn't totally surprised.

All in all, I would be happy to suggest to others to walk this route between Doddington and March, but please take care if you are going to do the full route from Chatteris.

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