Old Milverton (10 mile round trip)
Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Today’s walk took me on a roundabout route along the edge of the Warwickshire Golf Club and along the northern outskirts of Warwick Town. I was walking alone and, for the first time, with only the Ordnance Survey map (Explorer 221) and a compass to guide me. No walking guidebook, such as the invaluable More Kenilworth Footpaths, published by the Kenilworth Footpath Preservation Group. My objective was to visit the church of St. James in Old Milverton and the grave of Vera Brittain, author of the classic memoir Testament of Youth (1933). I spent more than half an hour wandering through the churchyard, but failed to find Brittain’s grave. So I headed back to Kenilworth up the Warwick Road, stopping briefly at the Anchor in Leek Wooton for a pint of Old Hooky, an unusually fruity ale brewed at the Hook Norton Brewery in Oxfordshire.