Burton Green
Circular Walk 30 (6 Miles)
Walk Overview
Please note that this walk will be closed from Monday17 March - Sunday 13 April 2025, due to HS2 work on Waste Lane . This circular walk starts with a road section, then covers a delightful area of Warwickshire countryside between Coventry and Balsall Common, crossing fairly flat farmland and goes along a new "Greenway". The walk incorporates a section of the Millennium Way and has been amended from the original route due to HS2 works, which we now just cross over twice on roads, so it is not visible for long. The route of the main trail has also been amended on our route description and GPS file, but not yet on OS maps. Please advise us of any further changes that occur. Note that 5 of the 6 stiles are on the short section after Waste Lane, which can be avoided by just walking up to the crossroads.
Walk Details
- Start: Hickory’s Smokehouse, Burton Green CV4 8AP
- Start Grid Ref: SP 272 767
- Parking: Hickory's Smokehouse if taking refreshment or roadside
- Refreshments:
- Hickory’s Smokehouse (02477 524114)
- Maps: OS Explorer 221 or Landranger 140
- Distance: 6 miles
- Time: 3 hours
- Stiles: 6 (not all 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 February 2025
Walk Instructions
Section A
Our walk starts from The Hickory Smoke House in Burton Green. With your back to the pub turn right and walk along the pavement of the pleasant suburban Cromwell Lane for one mile crossing over HS2 over what will be a "Green Tunnel. This road becomes Hob Lane but keep walking to pass Burton Green Primary School.
Meet the natives
Section B
300 paces after the school, where the road bends gently right, go left by the way mark sign following the route named Birmingham Road (ignore footpath right). Stay along private drive and just before a white house named "Stile End" take a gated gap on left and then immediately right through a kissing gate into field. Stay directly forward here taking the right hand footpath and keeping close to trees on your right. Take kissing gate in corner of field and stay on same heading to take field corner gap into next field, then go 1/2 left diagonally across very large field, aiming in the distance for the gap between the second and third pylons from the left. Eventfully you will reach a gated footbridge 80 paces in from the left corner of field. Take the double gated footbridge, then go left to pass double power poles through gap into another field. Continue along line of power lines with hedge right to take kissing gate to main road.
Section C
Take great care crossing directly over main A452 Birmingham Road, then continue up driveway of Chase Farm. Just a few yards after passing large pylon on left and under power lines you will reach a driveway on your left. Here we join The Millennium Way by turning right opposite the driveway to cross a field passing exactly 10 paces to the left of a large solitary oak tree. Stay ahead across field to reach a yellow topped waypost by field corner edge. After 10 paces take gap left and then immediately right to go around large field edge with hedge right eventually to take far mid hedge stile/gap. Go over ditch bridge and take gap. Stay ahead across field heading for far right corner to find waymarker and two kissing gates. Take both kissing gates and go ahead with hedge right for 250 paces to find and take a gap/bridge (with a metal kissing gate right). Go ahead over centre of field and take gateway/gap to main road.
Open countryside
Section D
Cross over main road to take kissing gate into tree lined copse to field. Go with hedge left, then take corner kissing gate and go right, hugging two sides of field to far field corner stile (or cross diagonally if mown). Cross stile/gap and ditch bridge then go diagonally left across field to hedge gap by large oak tree, then ahead to find field corner metal gate. Take gate and cross ditch bridge to driveway. Cross driveway and take kissing gate to left of gateway. Go left with hedge left to find and take field corner kissing gate. Bear right with hedge right to take gap. Immediately after gap by waypost, go left with hedge left to field corner. Remain in field (ignoring broken waymarked stile left) and go right keeping hedge left passing under power lines to find and take field corner ditch bridge. Go with hedge left to take kissing gate to Hob Lane.
Stunning views
Section E
Here we join a diversion of The Millennium Way not shown on OS Maps. Turn right on Hob Lane and after 50 paces turn left into the driveway of Beanit Farm - The Old Granary. After 60 paces take wooden gate on right, then cross footbridge over ditch to take a further wooden gate. Stay along narrow enclosed footpath to cross another small wooden bridge then turn right to reach wide track. Go left here and stay on track. Where the track narrows, stay forward to exit via metal kissing gate to join a newly constructed track known as The Greenway. Turn sharp left here on the track walking away from the overhead power cables. Stay on fenced track, which weaves right & left for some while to arrive at a pedestrian crossing over the B4101 Waste Lane. Go over the pedestrian crossing and turn right to carefully walk up the grass verge (please take extra care on this busy main road). Go past another entrance to Little Beanit Farm on your right and cross bridge over the HS2 route below. Continue ahead on grass verge/pavement passing bus stop and red post box. Just past Field House, by the large road sign, take the public footpath on left down narrow passageway bordered by wooden fencing. At the end of the passageway go over stile and go left with hedge left to take corner double stile. Stay forward to take next stile, or through adjacent gated gap, keeping hedge & fence left to reach the corner. Take stile and go right to reach Hodgett's Lane.
Section F
Here we leave The Millennium Way and turn right on road to go over crossroads (signed Burton Green) and after a further 120 paces find and take kissing gate left. Follow direction of waymark towards two large trees (one behind the other.) Just before you reach the first tree (on which you will see a waymarker), go diagonally left. You are heading for the field corner kissing gate, with adjacent five bar gate. Take kissing gate then stay ahead, gently uphill to reach two large double metal gates ahead. Take the corner stile adjacent to the large double gate on your left into field. Walk ahead more or less parallel to power lines for 200 paces to reach a waymarked post by a telephone pole. Here we turn right and go across field between the waymarked wooden pen left and a lone tree right. Keep ahead across large field aiming towards a wooden fence to find a kissing gate to the right of the house whose garden sticks out into the field. Take kissing gate and stay along driveway past several houses to reach road. Turn right and you will arrive back at The Hickory Smokehouse for refreshments.
Points of Interest - What to know and what to see...
by Andy Botherway
The Moat - Bockendon
© Copyright David Stowell - licensed for use under Creative Commons license
Bockendon Grange
One of the oldest parts of the present parish of Burton Green is the area around Bockendon Grange and Westwood, though this was not considered part of Burton Green in Medieval times.
Bockendon and Westwood were part of the Manor of Stoneleigh. The name Bockendon is recorded from 1262. In the 1150s, Henry II gave land at Westwood Heath to the Cistercian Monks of Stoneleigh Abbey, for the purposes of farming and they established a farm at Bockendon Grange. Evidence of fish pools, created by the monks, still remains.
Burton Green
HS2 will run through the centre of Burton Green partly on the line of the old disused railway, which was the Greenway before the new Greenway was constructed (see picture). It will be under a 400 yards so-called cut and cover "Green Tunnel". They have made a cutting, inserted the concrete tunnel and will then recover it all with soil and plant trees and vegetation.
Disused RailLevel walking - a delight
Rudfyn Manor
Rudfyn Manor
Just off our route, once a hunting lodge on the Castle estate built by Robert Dudley, but sold off in 1917, this part-Tudor listed building stands high up, with spectacular views.
Railways
The railway line near Beechwood Tunnel and Nailcote Hall is the main Birmingham-Coventry-London West Coast route. This was the first inter-city line, engineered by Robert Stephenson in 1838. It will be crossed a mile North West of Waste Lane by HS2.