Little Paxton & River Ouse Circular
Cambridgeshire Walk
County/Area - Cambridgeshire
Author - Lou Johnson
Length - 6.4 miles / 10.4 km Ascent - 150 feet / 45 metres
Time - 3 hours 20 minutes Grade - easy/mod
Maps
Ordnance Survey Explorer 225 | Sheet Map | 1:25k | BUY |
Anquet OS Explorer 225 | Digital Map | 1:25k | BUY |
Walk Route Description
Click image to see photo description.
This Cambridgeshire walk explores the Paxton Pit Nature Reserve combined with a section along the River Ouse using the Ouse Valley Way. The route uses footpaths and tracks with a short section along a quite county lane. Depending on the season, the nature reserve is host to a wide variety of birds and if you are lucky, you may see an Otter in the River Ouse.
The walk starts from the free car park at Paxton Pits Nature Reserve (grid ref. TL195629) which lies to the east of Little Paxton village. After parking walk east across a wooden footbridge. Continue ahead ignoring a gate signed to Weedy Lake and follow the 'Heron Trail'. Cross a road, head through metal gate and pass information boards. Pass an education centre on your right. Continue ahead on a clear stony track. You soon pass a hide on your left. Stay on the track as it veers left past farm buildings to reach a junction and fingerpost. Follow the path signed to the Ouse Valley Way.
The clear path follows the River Ouse (on your right) past moorings and through a metal gate. Reaching a path junction where the Heron Trail goes left (grid ref. TL203639) continue ahead on a grassy path (signed Ouse Valley Way). You now have just over two kilometres of pleasant walking beside the river. Reaching a path junction (TL214661), turn left leaving the riverside path. Continue along a fenced path, cross a bridge, pass a substation, and then bear right past a small reservoir used by Anglian Water. Go through a metal gate and turn left (grid ref. TL211664). Walk ahead and continue to reach a surfaced track. Turn left onto a footpath with views across the watery landscape to your left. After one kilometre you reach a track.
Turn left signed to Diddington along a farm track. You soon reach a metalled road passing houses on your right. Where the road bends right with a thatched cottage on your left, leave the road and follow a track to a gate and fingerpost (grid ref. TL195655). Go half left (signed to Paxton Pits) across the field. Pass through the hedge and bear right to the next fingerpost. Turn left, cross an access track and veer right across a small bridge into a small wood (grid ref. TL200651).
Continue through the wood and exit through a gate. Walk across the field and turn left over a concrete culvert over a stream. Immediately turn right (fingerpost). Keep ahead towards Broughton Lodge Farm. Pass through a gate to the right of the farm and continue across a track to a fingerpost opposite. Pass through trees following the fingerposts. Reaching a quarry track (TL197641) turn left along the track and enter the nature reserve again. Pass through a gate on the right and continue along the path which runs parallel to the track (track on your right). Keep ahead along the path to reach woodland. Turn right signed to Rory’s Wood and then left at the lake to follow the track back to the car park used at the start.
Other walks nearby
Walk 3271 | Grafham Water Circular | easy/mod | 8.7 miles |
Walk 2133 | Graffham Water | easy/mod | 7.8 miles |
Walk 2123 | Everton & Potton | moderate | 12.0 miles |
Walk 2305 | Gamlingay, Tetworth & Everton from Potton | easy/mod | 9.5 miles |
Walk 2477 | Alconbury Weston & Buckworth Circular | easy | 6.9 miles |
Walk 3113 | Sandy and Everton Circular | easy/mod | 7.5 miles |
Walk 3741 | St. Ives, Houghton & the Hemingfords | easy | 5.6 miles |
Walk 2714 | Between Beeston and Old Warden | easy/mod | 11.5 miles |
Walk 1963 | Elsworth & Conington | moderate | 10.1 miles |
Walk 3605 | Shelton & Yelden from Upper Dean | easy/mod | 7.5 miles |
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