Cold Air, Familiar Paths - Clipstone

The air felt very different to just a week ago.

Instead of walking in bright sunshine and 33-degree heat, we were now back in the grey, slightly damp, eight-degree East Midlands. England again. Properly England. Low cloud, muted colours, and that familiar cool smell of woodland and wet earth.

This was our first walk since getting home, a recce for leading the Pathfinders group again after our extended holiday. It quickly became clear that a few weeks of hotel breakfasts, buffets, and long coach journeys had not done our fitness any favours, but we set off anyway, determined to get round whatever the pace turned out to be.

The Headstocks at Clipstone

We chose a six-mile circular route around the heathland and woodland on the edge of Clipstone, in north Nottinghamshire.
It’s an area we know quite well, but one that always seems bigger once you start walking rather than driving past it.

Clipstone itself is a former coal-mining town, and the past is never very far away here. Not long into the walk, as we climbed up onto the higher ground, the twin headstocks of the old Clipstone Colliery appeared through the haze, standing above the trees like something from another era. Even in the mist they dominate the skyline, a reminder of when this whole area revolved around the pit. They look almost skeletal now, but still strangely impressive.

The climb up to the heath felt steeper than it probably was, though that may have been more to do with jet lag and buffets than the gradient. At the top we reached the open ground of Bower Hill Heath, where the landscape changes to rough grass, gorse, and low scrub, with wide views across Sherwood Forest and the surrounding farmland when the weather allows it. Today the view faded quickly into grey, the distance disappearing into mist.

A sun dial sculpture in the park

At the summit stands a small metal sculpture, one of those pieces that probably means more than it looks. Against the dull sky it had a slightly ghostly feel, the thin metal shapes outlined against the cloud, with the colliery headstocks faint in the distance behind it.

Despite the weather, the heath was full of birdsong.

For such a dull morning it felt surprisingly lively. My birdsong app suggested dunnocks, chiffchaffs, and even a Eurasian siskin — which sounded like the app might be making things up, but the noise was definitely there. Spring was clearly starting, even if the sky hadn’t noticed yet.

From the heath we dropped down the far side, following tracks that wound past small ponds and wet ground before reaching the edge of the Crown Estate, and a road we often travel along. Turning off onto a narrower trail, we found ourselves on a long straight path that looked as though it might once have been an old railway or service track, running arrow-straight between banks of gorse and scrub. It seemed to go on forever, the kind of path that feels short on a map but not on your legs.

Eventually the track led into deeper woodland, the ground soft with leaves and the trees tall and bare, just beginning to show the first signs of spring. Somewhere along the way we passed an old boundary marker and a few weathered signs pointing towards High Hazel Coppice, names that sound as though they have been here far longer than the paths themselves.

We hadn’t really realised how much woodland there is around Clipstone until walking it properly. From the road it never looks like much, but once you are inside it feels like a proper stretch of forest.

Forest at Clipstone

The route eventually brought us back towards Vicar Water, where the lake lay still under the grey sky, the surface reflecting the trees and, in the distance, the colliery towers again.

We passed another walking group near the water, a friendly lot who turned out to be called Steps for the Soul, one of those local groups that seem to know every path for miles around. One of them lived nearby and was leading the group though their ‘backyard’..

By the time we reached the end, our legs were definitely feeling it, but we had made the full six miles without needing to shorten the route, which felt like a small victory after the holiday.

We finished, as most good walks should, with coffee at the café by Vicar Water.

And, fitness permitting, we should be ready for Pathfinders next week.