We had a most comfortable weekend at The Windmill, Badby, in Northamptonshire

Try the excellent Timothy Taylor Landlord - a very fine bitter

Badby is an attractive village of ironstone and thatched cottages.

October 2004

GEOGRAPH

A much under-rated county with, at least in the south-west, honey coloured stone houses and rolling typical English countryside. We had a delightful time and would recommend it to casual walkers and those interested in the English countryside. It really is the undiscovered Rose of the Shires....

Badby Wood is ancient woodland, imparked in 1245 and designated an SSSI in 1985.

You can visit the Stoke Bruerne Canal Museum only a few miles away ...

The Canal basin at Stoke Buerne, where there is also a canal museum.

Focus on the busy towpath and canal traffic.

Stoke Bruerne

Only a few miles from the M1 and in Northamptonshire, this is a pleasant place to sit and stare or to walk along the Grand Union Canal. Try both pubs - the Boat and the Navigation. There's Marstons, Adnams and Banks at the slightly disappointing Boat.

This is one of our direction posts near Fawsley in Northamptonshire

There is a very fine Elizabethan house and splendid parkland around Fawsley, through which runs the Knightley Way

Trees

They come in all shapes and sizes - and colours.... Sometimes they are sign posts, as this one was for us, though oftentimes they are warnings. We like trees, but are wary of their power ....