Parish Paths Partnership - South West Boundry
Walk

Bridleway 34

This is the number of this path on the Difinitive Rights of
Way map administered by North Lincolnshire Council. It is a
linear path and unfortunately the only substantial right of way
remaining along a section of the parish boundry. Centuries ago
all parish boundaries would have been footpaths and it would have
been important for all local people to know where the boundry
ran.
The parish boundry defined the area from which the parish church
drew its congregation and sacramental income. From the sixteenth
to nineteenth centuries it defined the area within which local
overseers in vestry administered the Poor Law, church rates and
highways, and often local charitable benefactions were
administered by trustees within a given parish, details of which
were often displayed on boards in the parish church. Barton,
although it had two substantial, high status medieval churches,
technically remained one ecclesiastical parish and, in this
instance, the civil parish which has existed now for over one
hundred years has the same boundary. Today's Barton Town Council
administers the same area and sends three elected councillors to
the two tier unitary council of North Lincolnshire - this
following the abolition of Glanford District Council and
Humberside County Council in 1996.
Parish boundaries then are important features in the landscape
and in this instance it is defined by a clear mound. Whether this
is the remnants of a man-made linear mound to define the parish
boundary or whether it is a result of differential ploughing on
fields either side is not certain. As is often the case in this
area the parish boundary field headland winds across the
landscape in contrast to the rectangular field boundaries all
around created by Parliamentary Enclosure of the medieval open
fields, in the case of Barton in the 1790's.
This bridleway crosses the dip slope of the Northern Lincolnshire
Wolds chalk escarpment dipping WNW, but made undulating by the
heads of post-glacial dry valleys. Barton lies at the lower part
of two dry valleys, the inlets of which beyond the spring line
gave access to the Humber. Thus in clear weather Hull's townscape
is clearly visible to the NE, while the Yorkshire Wolds are
visible to the North. As is often the case, from the south bank
the estuary itself is obscured from view.
(If the walk is started from the Saxby Road, off the Barton-Brigg
Road, there are wide grass verges to park. Walking north along
the field headland bridle way Chapel Farm and its shelter belt of
trees can be seen across the field. Soon the path follows the
eastern side of Turton's Covert, a post-enclosure rectangular
plantation of mostly ash and beech trees, probably to provide
brushwood and act as a fox and pheasant covert.)
Shelter belts, hedgerows, coverts and plantations provide the
only woodland in this landscape dominated by arable agriculture.
As the footpath snakes toward Horkstow Road the walker can see
recently planted ash trees and thousands of young hawthorn which
hopefully will eventually grow to a mature hedgerow to replace
the one uprooted in the 1960's when so much non-agricultural
vegetation was lost in areas like this. Policies now encourage
farmers to diversify and to restore some biodiversity. The field
headlands across Horkstow Road are not a public right of way, so
the walker has to return to Saxby Road.
Walking south from the starting point one passes a solitary small
oak tree and a little further on an ash, reminders that almost
certainly a century ago mature and young trees would have been
common along the hedgerows and field/parish boundaries.
Much of the thin chalk downs topsoil is covered with a layer of
post-glacial till so as well as cereal crops, the walker will see
root crops such as potatoes and suger beet in the fields around.
Towards the southern end of Bridleway 34 the very end of a dense
linear plantation is passed while a little further on the
footpath passes alongside a thick, mature hawthorn shelter belt.
This southern section of Bridleway 34 is a section of The Viking
Way - a long distance footpath from the Humber Bridge Viewing
Area in Barton through Lincolnshire to the county of Rutland.
Guide books can be bought from the Information Centre that was
the coastguard station at the Viewing Area.
The northern section of Bridleway 34 is also part of a medium
distance Barton and Horkstow Circular Walk (Ancholme Valley Walk
No. 10), the leaflet for which is produced by the Countryside
Section of North Lincolnshire Council.

This is one of four Parish Paths Partnership walks. They
are available in leaflet style free of charge from many outlets
in Barton. They have been researched and written by Richard
Clarke, designed by Richard Hatfield, the photography was done by
Tim Needham, Albert Sykes and Richard Clarke, and the leaflets
were funded by Barton Town Council and North Lincolnshire
Council.