Summary
Although there is some walking through town, about half of this route is along the Nene Way between Wellingborough and the Rushden Lakes shopping complex and a good portion in open fields and Irchester Country Park. The route was fine for our walk but one can imagine it being rather muddy in wet weather, particularly the part along the river.
Statistics
Start: Junction of Boundary Avenue and Irchester Road, Rushden
Map: OS Explorer 224 Corby, Kettering & Wellingborough
Parking: Road parking
Distance: 15.8km (about 9.8 miles)
Refreshments: The Carpenter's Arms, Irchester and numerous eateries at Rushden Lakes.
The Walk
Start at the junction of Boundary Avenue and Irchester Road, walking along Irchester Road towards Knuston. The road descends past farm buildings on your right and then ascends over the railway bridge. Soon after the bridge there is a footpath sign on your right. There are two footpaths here; choose the right hand one that follows the field boundary and goes downhill before bearing left slightly and going back uphill. You pass through an alley way next to the bowls club and emerge onto Irchester High Street. Cross the road and turn right into St Katherine's Way - or pop into the Carpenter's Arms for a swift pint first.
The path at the end of St Katherine's way goes past the cemetery, bears right and turns into open field. Turn left and then a quick right and you should see the well defined path that traverses the field diagonally on your left. This will take you to some steps leading down into Irchester Country Park. There are several routes around the park and its worth ambling through the trees for a while before finding the visitor centre and then following the sign to the railway museum. Follow this path, passing the museum on your left and head down to the gate bringing you onto a small road. This is Little Irchester - walk left and down the road and past the war memorial. Make a right here and under the A45 flyover and across the river Nene. Just after the bridge there is a pathway taking you down to the river. Take this and turn left, keeping the river to your right. The rather old buildings opposite are part of Whitworth Brothers, and are a remnant of when commerce here was conducted by river.
The path now follows the course of the Nene for several kilometres. Pass between a number of lakes that were formed after gravel extraction ceased and under the arches of the railway bridge. You'll come to Ditchford Road which you need to cross to the footpath opposite. The path is less well defined here but should still be easy to follow. You may glimpse the Rushden Lakes shopping complex through the trees on your right.
The path reaches a cross-road. Left will take you towards Irthlingborough and right to the shops. You go straight one, still following the river, until you get to the footbridge over the busy A45. The river is quite straight here and this is as a result of a change in the water course when the by-pass was being constructed.
Walk over the bridge between the lakes and take the footpath on the right just as you emerge on the road. The path goes through the trees and across a road that leads to RPC Containers. Continue along this path and past the relatively new housing on your left, emerging onto Northampton Road. Cross here and make your way down Hayway, eventually turning right at Spencer Road to pass through Spencer Park. Cross the park to come out in Washbrook Road. It's all road walking now, going up the hill to cross Wellingborough Road and into Irchester Road. After around 800 metres you will be back where you started.
Notes and Musings
Being the town I grew up in and where I have lived for over 50 years, I could talk for some time about Rushden. The town's history and development is intrinsically linked to the shoe trade and there were over 100 factories involved in the footwear industry in the early 1900s. The "Great Fire of Rushden" started in one these factories - John Cave & Sons - in July 1901 and devastated much of the High Street and surrounding buildings. Among its other claims to fame are being the birthplace of the author H E Bates and the location for filming the 1970s police show "Hunter's Walk". The excellent Rushden Heritage website is packed with history, old news items and photographs and is well worth a visit.
The Rushden Lakes shopping complex was completed in 2017 to much excitement in the town. Built on the site of the old Skew Bridge ski club, the Lakes was some time coming, mainly as a result of planning objections from neighbouring local councils. I always considered Skew Bridge a rather pretentious place but it was somewhere you could always get a late drink on a Friday night and was the venue for many parties I attended in my younger days. The complex also houses a multiplex cinema; the first cinema in Rushden since The Ritz, closed in 1982 to become a bingo hall. Queues stretched from the Ritz and past the Rose & Crown pub into the High Street when a "blockbuster" was showing.
The hamlet of Ditchford is well known to Rushden's "older" residents for being the home of Chettles, an animal waste processing company. The smell of the lorries as they passed though Rushden loaded with who-knows-what is not one of my fonder childhood memories and my father-in-law, who once worked there, tells a story of an exploding pig carcass that is best left at that!
Developed on a former ironstone quarry, Irchester Country Park opened in 1971. Its ridge and furrow landscape is a feature of the machines that once mined the iron ore and a large part of the quarry is still visible. The quarries closed in the early 1960s but extensive tree planting had already taken place and as the majority of these trees were planted between 1930 and 1950, they are all roughly the same size. The onsite railway museum contains some artifacts from the quarrying days as well as a number of narrow gauge steam and diesel locomotives.
Rising from it source close the village of Badby near Daventry, the Nene flows some 160 km into The Wash on England's east coast. The Nene Way footpath follows much of the river's course (with occasional detours) until in reaches Wansford on the Northamptonshire/Lincolnshire border. An area of much controversy is the pronunciation of the river's name. From Northampton to around Peterborough, its name rhymes with Ken but from there to the sea it changes to rhyme with Keen. As a "Ken" man, it is a source of much annoyance to hear the river's name mis-pronounced "Keen" when its mentioned on TV!
