Easy hikes and walks around Halford

"The small market town of Shipston-on-Stour is situated in South Warwickshire and ideally located for visitors to the North Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon. It is surrounded by places of interest including Chipping Campden, Broadway, and Moreton-in-Marsh. The towns name derives from being known in ancient times as 'Sheep-wash-Town'. Shipston was for a long time an important sheep market town and after the demand for local wool began to diminish the town continued to flourish thanks to the opening in 1836 of a branch line from the horse-powered tramway built a decade before to link Stratford with Moreton-in-Marsh. The line became a modern railway in 1889. The town was also an important coaching town and many of the inns from that era surviving in the area of the High Street. Shipston today is a charming historic and thriving town with interesting and unusual features.. It is becoming increasingly popular with tourists due to its wonderful mixture of shops, pubs, restaurants and hotels. Shipston was a working Wool Town and developed many woolen skills, including those for making tapestries including the famous Sheldon Tapestries in neighbouring farming hamlet of Barcheston. which became central to the history of English tapestry making. It is today officially commemorated by the 'Wool Fair' which takes place on Spring Bank Holiday Monday. In the Tudor period the little hamlet of Barcheston on the outskirts of Shipston was the first manufacturing home in England for the weaving of magnificent woollen tapestries. They are also known as the Sheldon Tapestries. They are profusely decorated with flowers and mythological motifs and often highlighted in silk. Technically, for that period, they were unrivalled throughout the land. Unfortunately very few have survived." Source: https://www.cotswolds.info/places/shipston-on-stour.shtml

Shipston Cemetery Chapel was built and consecrated in the mid 19th century. It is a Grade II Listed Building consisting of two mortuary chapels - one for members of the Church of England and one for Nonconformists. The cemetery itself is also a Commonwealth War Graves Commission site. Source: https://wikimapia.org/23796671/Cemetery-Chapel

"Barcheston church is a delightful largely fifteenth century building in a secluded spot close to Shipston on Stour. It's most distinguishing feature externally is the leaning north west tower, which inclines dramatically to the west (and is sometimes referred to as 'Warwickshire's Pisa'!). The effect is somewhat alarming, but it has been this way for some centuries, having settled soon after it was built, as witnessed by the additional buttress propping up the west face; hopefully it will be staying put for the foreseeable future. The church has more of a Cotswold appearance than one is normally used to seeing in Warwickshire, and would perhaps seem more at home if it stood over the Gloucestershire or Oxfordshire borders, very much a sign of how far south we are in the county. The layout is quite irregular, the chancel is off centre and the south aisle is more of a seperate chapel only half the length of the nave. The first glimpse upon entering via the lean-to south porch is the view looking across to the north aisle, with it's very domestic looking windows (a post Reformation alteration, possibly to admit more light) and an arcade that seems to be leaning even more dramatically than the tower (where the arcade meets the tower wall there is a bracket 'propped up' by a carved 'helping hand', very apt and much needed assitance judging by the angle!)." Copyright: Aidan McRae Thomson 2012 Source: https://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/barcheston---st-martin.html

This was the start/finish point of this walk. "The Church of St Barnabas and St Nicholas was built in the Imperial period, replacing a Medieval church on the same site. The bell turret was added in the 19th Century, during renovation. The church is situated north east of the Manor House, Burmington. There is a fair amount of Medieval masonry in the church walls perhaps dating from as early as the 13th century, but the only ancient architectural detail surviving is part of the chancel arch of c1200. The church had fallen into decay and the nave was rebuilt in 1693; it formerly had a central tower, 4.9m square, but this was then abolished and the chancel reduced in size. A further very complete restoration was also carried out in the 19th century when all the windows, doorways, and roofs were renewed, the bell-turret added, and other work done. In 1311 Burmington was a chapel annexed to the church at Wolford. The chancel arch has two big re-used late 12th century corbels and the NW tower has a pyramid roof." Source: https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/catalogue_her/church-of-st-barnabas-and-st-nicholas-burmington

Great value for money £3 for coffee and cake. Owner very nice and polite.

Pop up cafe since 2020. Family run business. Reasonable prices. Good for a break in your walk.

The church of ST. EDMUND, which stands on the east side of the Stratford road, between it and the River Stour, consists of a chancel 27½ ft. by 19 ft., a north chapel 15½ ft. square, a vestry to the north of this 12 ft. by 9½ ft., south chapel 15½ ft. by 12½ ft., nave 71 ft. long and of similar width to the chancel, north aisle 15½ ft. wide, south aisle 17 ft. wide, south porch and a western tower 9½ ft. by 8¾ ft., all these measurements being taken within the walls. The whole of the church, except the 15th-century tower, was rebuilt in 1855 in the style of the 14th century. Beyond the tower there are now no old remains. From notes made by Prattinton in 1812 the former church appears to have been of early date, consisting of a chancel and chapel and a nave separated from a north aisle by a round-arched arcade. The font, however, was of 1707. Habington mentions two raised tombs in the churchyard to John White, who died in 1632, and Thomas White his son, who died in 1631. The present chancel has an east window of five lights with a traceried head and a single light on the south. The sedile in the same wall has a segmental head, while on the north side is a flat pointed arch. On either side of the chancel are arches opening to the chapels, and that opening to the nave is of one order. The nave has arcades on both sides of five bays, and each of the chapels has a western cross arch and is lighted by a four-light traceried east window. Both aisles have four two-light traceried windows in their side walls, with north and south entrances at the west ends. The west window of the north aisle is of two lights and the corresponding window of the south aisle of four lights, both with traceried heads. The tower arch is old and two orders, the outer of which is continuous and the inner interrupted by a moulded capital of late form. The tower is two stages high, and is supported on its west face by diagonal buttresses which rise to about half its height. It has a western window of three lights with modern tracery and arch, but with an old two-centred rear arch. Over the west window, and also on the north side, are small rectangular lights of a single chamfered order. The belfry is lighted on each side by a two-light window with a plain spandrel in the pointed head. The parapet of the tower is embattled, and at each corner is a small square pinnacle rising from the coping only, and surmounted by a crocketed finial. There are also intermediate pinnacles set diagonally and rising from grotesque heads in the parapet string. Grotesques project likewise from the western angles at the same level. The pulpit and the font are modern and both of stone. There are six bells in the tower, all by Matthew Bagley, and of 1754, except the third, which is of 1774. The plate consists of a communion cup inscribed 1824 with the hall mark for 1822, a salver of 1823 and a flagon of the same date.