Three medieval churches and a dovecote - Flintham, Syerston and Sibthorpe, 16th March 2016

This walk ...

.. was featured in the Nottingham Post ten days ago.  The full text is included after these images.

St Augustine’s Church, Flintham
 
Flintham Community Shop
All Saints Church, Syerston

Syerston Pinfold
St Peter's Church, Sibthorpe

Sibthorpe dovecote

Boot and Shoe, Flintham
Flintham Library
The walks starts near the first of the medieval churches, St Augustine’s in Flintham. Take a few minutes to walk round the church and have a look at an interesting old stone cross in the graveyard. 

Walk back to the road and turn left onto Inholms Road, past Flintham Village Hall, the Community Shop and the award-winning Flintham Museum. Go beyond the school and just after the road swings left, turn right down a footpath which skirts the edge of the sewage works to a wooden bridge, before heading directly across open fields towards Syerston. Go straight ahead, taking a short deviation around a fallen tree. 

At Longhedge Lane, a wide grassy byway, turn right but then immediately left through the hedge and along a footpath across the open field with Syerston in the distance. Continue ahead over stiles until at the second yellow-topped post on the outskirts of Syerston, leave the field and climb the stile into what appears to be someones garden, Keep well to the left and find a gap in the hedge to emerge on Main Street. Now turn left and walk up to the second of our churches, All Saints Church which probably dates back to the fourteenth-century. 

Retrace your steps and at a red post box, bear left along Moor Lane and past a pinfold on the right. After a deep water warning sign the road becomes a track and swings left. A further 100m on and on the right, cross the ditch on a small wooden bridge and follow the footpath sign to head south west along an indistinct field path and small wooden bridges towards a distant copse, Ash Holt. Head for the yellow post to the right of the copse and turn left along a muddy path which becomes a wide, raised track with distant views of Belvoir Castle. Now follow the track for about 1.3 km, swinging to the right and then sharply to the left to avoid an unsatisfactory field path. 

Cross Deadwood Lane and head along a track for the middle of farm buildings on the edge of Sibthorpe. Emerge onto the road and turn left, then swing right to follow the lane to St Peter's Church beyond which can be found the dovecote built in 1370. 

Retrace your steps through the village and take the Flintham road for 800m. As the road turns left, turn right along Longhedge Lane for 1.4 km. As a wide track to Syerston is reached on the right, turn left along a grassy track towards Flintham, past Hill Farm, hidden behind a distinctive copse of dark conifers. Regain Inholms Road and turn left to reach the start point.