Berkswell (West)
Circular Walk 11 (4.75 Miles)
Walk Overview
Sections A and B use part of the main Millennium Way trail, with its distinctive black and white waymarkers. The second half of Section A goes alongside the HS2 cutting where our route has had to be slightly altered. All the stiles are dog friendly.
Walk Details
- Start: Centre of Berkswell CV7 7BB
- Start Grid Ref: SP245 791
- Parking: Car park in Lavender Hall Lane or roadside
- Refreshments:
- Bear Inn, Berkswell (01676 533202)
- The Nook Café on the Green. Berkswell
- Maps: OS Explorer 221 or OS Landranger 139 & 140
- Distance: 4¾ miles
- Time: 2½ hours
- Stiles: 5 (dog friendly)
- Download: Walk GPS (GPS Exchange Format, GPX)
- GPS and GPX explained
- Find a mobile app on the Apple App Store or Google Play
Updated December 2024
Walk Instructions
Section A
Starting from the car park in Lavender Hall Lane turn right up Church Lane, past the Nook Cafe opening in December 2024, towards the attractive 12th century Norman church of St. John Baptist (the crypt is well worth a visit). Continue ahead through the churchyard and two gates, then through a small wood and another gate and onto a long section of boarded walkway, with views of the Berkswell Hall (built c.1815) to your right. Cross the bridge over a stream, continue to a kissing gate and turn immediately right to join the Millennium Way. Pass through one small wood and follow the well defined path up the large field heading for the corner at edge of another small wood. You have lovely views of the lake and hall to your right.
St. John Baptist
Take the wooden kissing gate and go through the wood, then continue slightly uphill along wire fenced path keeping the tall hedge to your right to reach HS2 footpath diversion signage. Follow this signage, which is close to the original footpath, alongside Sixteen Acre Wood, eventually to go through a wooden kissing gate then right to follow around edge of wood passing a small pond on right and continuing along fenced pedestrian route eventually reaching a junction of paths with wooden kissing gate on right, with Marsh Farm over to your left. HS2 will be in a deep cutting to your left along this section, so you will see their works.
Section B
Go right through this wooden kissing gate and head down to cross a waymarked bridge over stream. Then go ahead across small field and between a fenced gap towards stile. Go over stile and then along path at edge of quarry on right. Take gap next to large metal gate to go right, along surfaced track around two bends eventually passing through a wooden gate next to a large metal gate. After another 250 paces you will come to a metal gate–in–gate on your left. Ignore this gate, as this is the point where you leave the Millennium Way. Instead, continue ahead on the surfaced track which becomes Mercote Hall Lane, past the drive to Park Farm until you reach a road junction.
Section C
At this junction take a kissing gate in the right hedge. These fields can be muddy. Go ahead across the first field to a gap in the hedge. Go through the gap and continue straight ahead across a second large field taking the stile/gap in the far left corner. Keep ahead with hedge right crossing over next stile then up field to go through a metal gate to reach the road (you can short cut to the end by going right down this road for half a mile).
The Bear Berkswell
Section D
Turn right onto road and after a few paces proceed through kissing gate on the left by the side of a double metal farm gate. Continue diagonally left across field to pass under power cables in far corner, then crossing stile to turn left, keeping to the edge of field with hedge left. Ignore kissing gate in first corner but continue around field edge, skirting wooded island with a pond, up the field to top left corner, then right for about 70 paces and take a hedge gap left by marker post. Then go right with hedge right to pass under power lines. Continue ahead to take corner gap in hedge turning left, keeping hedge left, along edge of field. Keeping to the left of a another small pond go through wooden kissing gate and continue ahead over small wooden bridge turning sharp right to reach, after 10 paces, a junction of paths. Ignore path straight ahead and take the right hand path to follow around edge of field keeping close to hedge right to reach kissing gate on right. Take kissing gate to join the Heart of England Way.
Continue along the track past Blind Hall Farm, through a kissing gate adjacent to cattle grid and stay along track until you reach the main road. Turn left for 300 yards. Just before the houses, take the footpath on the opposite side of the road, through kissing gate and go forward through second kissing gate and along path with fence right to go through two further kissing gates, eventually reaching Berkswell Church. Exit churchyard and turn left along Church Lane back to the car park.
Points of Interest - What to know and what to see...
by Andy Botherway
Berkswell
Berkswell is an interesting village with a lot of history. Berkswell takes its name from Bercul, a Saxon landowner, and the 16 foot square stone-walled well near the church is said to have been used for baptisms by immersion. For more notes on the features and history of the village, see the ‘points of interest’ notes for the circular East from Berkswell. The new Nook Cafe or The Bear pub across the road from the car park are suitable for refreshments after your walk.
The crypt in the church is really fascinating.
Berkswell Hall
Berkswell Hall is a 19th century country house, now converted into residential apartments. It is a Grade II listed building.
A manor house has existed since 1556 but the present house dates from 1815. Between 1815 and 1860 it was a school, but restored as a house and sold to Joshua Wheatley in 1888. In 1984 the estate was sold for redevelopment but the surrounding land is still owned by the Wheatley family.
The extensive gravel pits at Cornet’s End, from which lacustrine sands and fluvioglacial gravels have been extracted for many years are now being landscaped and converted into sites for industrial development. However, extraction continues in adjacent pits. It can be noisy in this area.
Hall & LakeBerkswell
Blind Hall Farm & Barn
Blind Hall Farm and Barn
A late 16th or early 17th Century grade II listed former farm, owned by the Berkswell Estate.
The nearby barn is also listed, dating from 1735.
The house is reputed to be haunted!
The Bear Inn at the end of the walk dates from the 16th century. It has an interesting interior and is part of the Chef and Brewer chain.