Hilmel one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Hilmel here.

Walked from Hilton to Melbourne. A better route than the surveyor led me to expect (why oh why do people survey routes without reviewing them?). The section of main road without a pavement has a walkable verge throughout and is unavoidable without very long detours, and the right of way through Foremark/Repton Prep school is definitely open again. There are a few slightly muddy sections, especially on the approach to Melbourne.

Apart from a short section of cycle track, all of the route from Hilton to Willington is on a fairly busy road, which is at least quick and direct. Most of the way there is a pavement, though it swaps sides at least once. Beyond Egginton Road the pavement stops, and it eventually resumes where we rejoin the old road beyond the A38. Most of this section has a good wide verge, but over the A38 bridge it is narrower and passes trees. The vegetation appeared to have been cut back fairly recently, but I was always able to use the verge whenever vehicles were approaching - photo 4 shows the narrowest point.

At Willington we continue to follow the pavement until just after crossing the Trent and Mersey canal. As our surveyor notes, the route misses out facilities by using a back alley path under the railway, but in my view Repton is better located for a halfway stop anyway. There is no sensible alternative to using the pavement across the Trent between Willington and Repton. There is an argument that a more direct route (maybe accessing Askew Grove from High Street) through the pretty historic village of Repton might be better, especially as the start of Brook End is narrow and has no space for a pavement, but these are minor quibbles and would not justify a new route.

The path out of Repton from Springfield Road to Milton is well marked and well trodden, but note that where it emerges on Main Street the road out has been diverted right a little by new houses, and now emerges almost opposite the path we continue on. This is more likely to confuse walkers coming from Melbourne, but there are footpath signs for both paths.

Good paths continue to the Home Farm lane, where we go left to find the driveway through Repton Prep school (formerly Foremark School). There are plenty of notices warning pedestrians not to stray from the road, but it is clearly a right of way and the staff clearly expect walkers, so I suspect that the apparent closure the surveyor encountered was a very short term Covid precaution.

Beyond the school we follow a roughly surfaced lane up the hill and through Heath Wood, then continue straight on down to Seven Spouts Farm, where we follow the waymarker left down a slightly muddy lane to a pool, where another path heads right and then uphill past a fenced off horse pasture. Where it enters a large open grassy space we turn left, then further left uphill into a pine wood (these grassy spaces are the only places on the whole walk where the paths are not distinct). Forest tracks lead us through the pines and out the far side.

We head straight across the A514 and down to St Brides Farm, following the muddiest footpath of the day then skirting a disused airfield and up another small hill to Cockshut Lane, where we follow the pavement left past playing fields. The path right is signposted - it passes between pitches then into a narrow enclosed space on a partly paved track (the paving is old and broken) steeply down the hill. Once in the houses the rest of the short walk into Melbourne is all on pavements apart from one unsignposted alleyway from Quick Close to the petrol station on High Street.

Overall a walk that I enjoyed more than I was expecting to, helped by warm spring sunshine.

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