Iona goes to the Woods

Trip 2: March 2026. White Feather,Badby, nr Daventry

We headed for the village of Badby, south of Daventry , Northants. My parents lived in the village from 1976 until they passed in 1993. 

The journey down to Daventry was fine but the sat nav decided we should go through the town. I decided to change direction and eventually we got on a road I recognised and from then it was fine.

We drove into the site but there were no hard standing pitches available. I rang the owner who was going to come and meet us. It was then that a camper shouted and said they were just leaving and we could have their pitch. A sigh of relief and we were met by Lars the owner. The campers apologised for leaving late but it didn’t matter. We set up on the pitch which was virtually level so that made it quick.

We had lunch and Sue was feeling a bit warn out with her cold/flu, so we sat in the van dozing for a bit. Once we were feeling a bit more lively I suggested a walk, but not a long one.

We left the site and found a footpath that I thought just looped around the church but it branched off towards Badby woods. Sue was feeling better so we headed into the woods and aimed for the playing fields. The path took us beside a graveyard so we went to see if we knew anyone. 

We found the grave of Derick & Pat Arch, in the 1990s they were the landlord and lady of the Maltsters Arms in the village. This was the time my parents lived in Badby opposite the Maltsters Arms. We also found the grave of a great character who we would join in The Windmill pub on a Sunday morning. He used snuff and always had a slightly orange nose. His was known as Monty after the British Commander in WW2, due to his appearance and army background. 

We continued our walk into the village and went to see my parents house and the pub.

Unfortunately we were too early for a drink. The Old Schoolhouse house was still as we remembered it. The village hall is attached to the back of the house and some of the land beside the hall has been reclaimed, mum used it as a vegetable patch.We ambled back to the campsite passing the old Post Office/shop and the Windmill pub, both now private homes.

Day 2:

We spent the morning relaxing after a very strong winds kept waking us up during the night. We settled for an early lunch before setting off on a walk to Newnham village.

We followed the River Nene, it is only a stream at this point, across fields until we arrived in Newnham. Unfortunately the pub website was wrong and the pub was closed. We crossed the green and followed a lane towards Badby woods.

When we got to a gate that I thought was a footpath it had Private signs on it. We continued along the road until we eventually came to a marked footpath.

We followed the path to Fawsley.

Fawsley Hall is now a hotel and apartments.

In the grounds there is a church that is surrounded by Ha-Ha, a ditch to stop animals getting into the church yard.

We looked around the small cemetery but the church was locked.

We found a footpath and headed back to Badby Woods. It was a long climb upto the woods but we were greeted with a mass of bluebells that were just beginning to open. We left the woods and followed the paths back to the village. We only just made it up Bunkers hill to the campsite. We had walked 7 miles, not bad when we had only planned to do 3 miles to the pub and back.

Day 3:

Our final day and we had another walk planned. This time we are heading to Upper Catesby where there is a clock tower and a monument. Our journey was over fields, up and down big hills. The village is small with only a few houses, there is a cemetery that is very overgrown. 

In the cemetery there were three modern graves from the 1980s & 1990s. Most were  very old, the oldest I could read was 1815 but many looks older and their headstones were laying down. There is a big monument but it is so old and weathered that I could not read the inscriptions.

We passed the cemetery and chose a path that took us to the Clock Tower, this turned out to be the name of an old manor house. We walked on around some lakes to complete our circuit before returning to the cemetery. We found the only bench and sat to rest and eat lunch.

After a short rest we headed home, this time following a quiet single track lane until we reached the main road and the Bunkers Hill lane to the campsite. Today we walked 6.6 miles.

Our next trip in a couple of weeks will be back to a favourite coastal venue.