Millennium Way: Long Itchington and the Grand Union Canal

Before you set off on the walk, it is worth exploring the village of Long Itchington which has plenty of historical interest. The village is named after the River Itchen which flows to the south and west. Just south of the pub on the main road, you will find an interesting half-timbered Tudor house where Queen Elizabeth I is said to have stayed in 1572 and 1575. The old Manor House in the square dates from the 1400s. Emerging from the pub car park, cross the road into Leamington Road keeping the large duck pond to your right, turning left to walk down Church Road. You will pass The Harvester pub on your left, then The Holy Trinity Church, then turn left into Bascote Road. Here you have joined The Millennium Way. Cross the bridge over the river and, at the end of wooden fencing, ignore the stile right instead go a further 20 paces to take a kissing right gate right into the field (following the black Millennium Way waymarker). Walk with the fence on your right to find a kissing gate on the right. Take this kissing gate-bridge-kissing gate combination and continue ahead with a ditch and fence on your left. Ignore the kissing gate left, instead continue ahead up the field with the river now on your right to take the far mid-fence kissing gate, by the river bridge, to a small road. Go right to cross the road bridge and pass the 30mph signs, following the road round to arrive at a T-junction. Go left on Short Lane and, at end of the first house garden, take the passageway left. At the end of the passageway take a kissing gate and go diagonally left across the field to find the gap by the pumping station. Take the gap and metal gate, going ahead with farm buildings to your right then through a second gate to exit ahead via a kissing gate into a field. Keep ahead, keeping a hedge on your right, to reach the field corner, then turn left (keeping the hedge and ditch on your right) to eventually find and take a metal kissing gate right in a hedge gap. Keep the stream on your left and, after some 110 paces, carefully look for a (sometimes difficult to see!) waymark into the woods. Follow the path through the woods with the river on your left to cross a tubular bridge.

After crossing the bridge turn left and, after 20 paces, go past the remnants of a metal gate to cross over a narrow disused railway line then take the metal gate ahead to a field. Go left round the field for 60 paces to come to the field corner. Stop at this point then go around the right-hand edge of the field and, at the end, turn left to find a hedge gap on your right by a telegraph pole. Take this gap and go diagonally across the next field towards a distant white house to take a mid-hedge stile. Continue ahead over the next field, maintaining your line, to exit by a telegraph pole to the road. Go right on the road and, some 200 paces before a white house, go left through a metal gate along the unclassified road known as Ridgeway Lane. (Here we leave The Millennium Way). Continue ahead towards the wood on the well-marked track with a hedge on your left to reach the road. Cross the road then continue along the track and turn left onto the canal towpath just before the bridge. You are now walking along the towpath of the Grand Union Canal (with the canal on your right). Continue along the towpath passing Bascote Locks. The top two locks at Bascote on the Grand Union Canal, Nos 14 and 15, are paired as a staircase - meaning the top gate of the bottom lock also acts as the bottom gate of the top lock. This is an efficient but potentially confusing arrangement and British Waterways provide a notice giving instructions to boaters. The view from below shows what a substantial piece of engineering the locks are.

Continue along the canal towpath until you reach Bridge 25. Do not pass under the bridge but look out for the small brick-built cubicle next to the towpath. (Here we rejoin The Millennium Way). Go behind the cubicle to take a kissing gate leading into a paddock. Cross the paddock diagonally and take two further kissing gates on either side of a farm track. Go ahead over the field to take a wooden footbridge then continue on to exit by a kissing gate. Go ahead over the field towards a modern white house in the distance, with a distinctive rear projection, and find the corner kissing gate. Take this corner kissing gate and turn left to follow a made-up lane serving private houses. In a few hundred metres, this lane (Thorn Way) gives onto an open area known as The Square. Exit the square and go right, passing The Harvester Inn on your right, to reach the crossroads. Go right and come to the main road with the Duck on the Pond pub where the walk began.