Four waymarked walks, green fingerposts at every junction, and ancient woodland either side of the path.
Four waymarked walks
None of them are hard going, and most take about an hour.
You can walk out of your lodge and be under trees inside five minutes. Four routes are waymarked across the park — two out over the fields, one along the line of a dismantled railway, and one through the woods to Holm Lake. Green fingerposts stand at the junctions, so you can decide as you go rather than before you set off.
The four walks
None of them are hard going, and most can be done in an hour or so. String two together and you have the morning. The woods carry old names — Great Morton, Little Morton, Fair Oak, Great Byard, each one a sale — and you will see them on the signs as you go.
Through the woods, away from the road
The one our own team laid through the trees, and the one most people ask about. It takes you down to Holm Lake, and if you keep going past the water it brings you round to Oak Lake and the main entrance. It stays off the road the whole way, which is the point of it.
Great Morton Sale to the old line
This one goes through Great Morton Sale and down to the dismantled railway that runs underneath the LNWR Railway Bridge — a proper piece of engineering built by the London and North Western Railway on the short connecting line between Seaton and Wansford. It is the walk with the most history in it.
Sessile Lake and the open country
Out around the park by way of Sessile Lake, into open countryside, then back round to Holm Lake past Great Byard Sale. The biggest sky of the four, and the one to do if you want the lakes and the fields in a single loop.
From the railway bridge, along Acorn Lake
Starts at the railway bridge and borders Little Morton Sale, bringing you along the length of Acorn Lake — the longest water on the park and the quietest corner of it.
Green fingerposts stand at the junctions and name everything they point at — the walks, the lakes, the railway bridge, reception. You can set off without a plan and still know where you are.
Two rights of way run off the park as well: the NE9 public footpath, and the bridleway that takes you towards Apethorpe. Both carry on into the wider forest if an hour is not enough.
On the paths
Gravel and grass underfoot, level for the most part, with mature oak standing over a good deal of it. None of it needs boots in summer, though the cutting holds water after heavy rain.
The Railway Ramble is the one that drops into the old line. The embankments still run either side of the track bed, and the stone abutments of the dismantled bridge are still standing where the path goes under them.
Alongside the walks
A run of timber exercise stations set along the path through the trees — pull-up and vault bars at low level, and taller frames to climb or brace against. Green signs mark it out.
It sits on the walking route rather than in a compound of its own, so you can pick it up as you pass rather than making a separate trip of it. The ground under the stations is woodland floor rather than matting, so it stays soft after rain.
Made on the park
The paths through the woods were not bought in. Our own team laid them, and a good deal of what you pass on the way was made on site too.
Along the way
Rockingham Forest survives as a patchwork of ancient woodland across north Northamptonshire, and this is one piece of it. Go slowly and it gives you a lot more.
In spring the woodland floor goes over to bluebells. It lasts a few weeks and it is worth timing a stay around.
Autumn brings fungi up through the leaf litter, sometimes in rings. Look, photograph, and leave them where they are.
Neat round holes in the trunks are the work of the resident woodpeckers. If a hole has not wintered well they rebuild nearby.
The path edges are left to flower rather than mown flat, which is why there is so much moving about in the grass in summer.
Before you set off
Shows every path, lake and numbered point on the park, and which walk is which at the junctions. Worth having on your phone before you leave the lodge.
Download the walking mapA booklet for smaller walkers, following the wildlife through the woods. Print it, or keep it open on a phone and let them lead.
Download the bookletDogs are welcome on all four walks. We ask that they are kept under control around the lakes and the meadows, where there is ground-nesting wildlife for much of the year.
Build dens from what has already fallen rather than off living plants, and the woods stay as you found them.
Five lakes, a wartime airfield, the play park and the bistro at the heart of it.
