Jane’s Walk 2024 – Day 2

We spent a lovely evening in Worcester with ZANE supporters who had kindly accommodated us in 2013 when we walked from Holyhead to Oxford and again in 2015 from Ambleside to Oxford and here we are again!

Another dry slightly over cast day is forecast which is perfect for walking. Our friends of yesterday meet us again and we leave the marina at Stourport which is teeming with motor pleasure boats. Yesterday, despite the bank holiday , we had not seen any on the river. We pick up the Severn Way just past the marina.

This area rather reminded us of walking through a mango swamp in Africa with lots of standing water, dead and dying trees, and lush vegetation, mainly created by the intruder Himalayan Balsam, which has a rather pretty pea-like pink flower. There was another smaller version with an orange flower in this stretch.

We are rather disquieted by the state of the paths, covered with fallen branches which makes progress difficult. This does not bode well for the rest of the walk. However further on, the path clears and progress is easy with steep wooded cliff to our left  and the river far below us.

After a while we leave the woodland behind and join the river again. Past the Lincombe Lock we begin to see a number of barges go by but no pleasure boats as yet. Caravan parks are popular here and we walk through a number of them, some of them in a very neglected state with lots of mobile homes neglected and empty. We come across one inhabited home with tiny goats in a fenced area and chickens strutting around.

We arrive at Holt Fleet bridge, which we have to cross, and have lunch at the large Holt Fleet Inn, which has recently spent a fortune to attract customers with its numerous eating facilities, both outside and inside.

Here the Severn Way leaves the river and we walk through farming country to the small hamlet of Holt. A very peaceful and charming place with a lovely 18 century Manor House built round a much older tower which is all that remains of Holt Castle. Opposite is a lovely red stone Norman Church.

Leaving Holt behind us the path takes us through a retail park selling every size of caravan and mobile home you could imagine, rather incongruous in this rural area.

Then on through farmland including a field of spring onions being harvested by hand by a team of pickers. Through the unfortunately named, but pretty villages of Grimes and back to the river and our stopping place at the Camp House pub. This is an ancient pub having been Licensed by Cromwell after the battle of Worcester in 1651.  It gets flooded inside every winter and according to the publican this winter 2023/24 this happened 3 times. After a welcome drink we were picked up by our hosts for the night