Hemswell and Willoughton
A walk along an ancient route linking two Lincolnshire villages. This gentle walk takes you between two quiet villages in an unexplored part of Lincolnshire overlooking the Trent valley and below the prehistoric track, the Jurassic Ridgeway, that runs all the way from the south-west of Britain and on into Yorkshire. This section of it is known as Middle Street and forms part of the modern B1398.
Ermine Street, the Saxon name for the Roman military road built by the Ninth Legion, runs from London to Lincoln. It then leads directly north of Lincoln to cross the River Humber at Brough, ignoring all settlements, until finally arriving at York. But Middle Street follows the much earlier, prehistoric Ridgeway closer to the Lincoln Cliff edge. Below it, at regular intervals, lie spring-line villages with early Anglo-Saxon names and, from a later date, Danish settlements. Hemswell and Willoughton are two of these ancient villages.
