(S/E) Starting from the car park in Lavender Hall Lane turn right up Church Lane, past the lovely Store and Stove Cafe opened in November 2021, towards the attractive 12th century Norman church of St. John Baptist (the crypt is well worth a visit).
(1) Continue ahead (West) through the churchyard and two gates, then through a small wood and another gate and onto a long section of boarded walkway, with views of the Berkswell Hall (built c.1815) to your right. Cross the bridge over a stream, continue to a kissing gate and turn immediately right.
Pass through one small wood and follow the well defined path up the large field heading for the corner at edge of another small wood. You have lovely views of the lake and hall to your right. Take the wooden kissing gate and go through the wood, then continue along wire fenced path keeping the hedge to your right.
(2) We have diverted this circular for the foreseeable future to avoid the worst of HS2, so you have to go left across the path of HS2 between the metal fencing to reach the main A452 road, where you join the diverted Millennium Way.
Go right (West-North-West) on the pathway at the side of the A452 taking care as this is a very busy road. After 700 yards cross the "Aston Martin" roundabout and continue for another 200 yards. Turn right onto the signed footpath just before the speed camera and go ahead for one field, then go half left to take the kissing gate 50 yards in front of Marsh Farm.
(3) Go a short distance crossing the HS2 route again to take a second kissing gate, where our diversion ends, then ahead down to cross (waymarked) bridge over a stream. Then go ahead across a small field and between a fenced gap towards the stile.
Go over stile and then along the path at the edge of the quarry on your right. Take a gap next to a large metal gate to go right, along surfaced track around two bends eventually passing through a wooden gate next to a large metal gate. After another 250 paces you will come to a metal gate–in–gate on your left. Ignore this gate, as this is the point where you leave the Millennium Way. Instead, continue ahead on the surfaced track which becomes Mercote Hall Lane, past the drive to Park Farm until you reach a road junction.
(4) At this junction take a kissing gate in the right hedge. These fields can be muddy. Go ahead across the first field to a gap in the hedge. Go through the gap and continue straight ahead across a second large field taking the stile/gap in the far left corner. Keep ahead with hedge right crossing over next stile then up the field to go through a metal gate to reach the road (you can short cut to the end by going right down this road for half a mile).
(5) Turn right onto the road and after a few paces proceed through the kissing gate on the left by the side of a double metal farm gate. Continue diagonally left (North-East) across the field to pass under power cables in the far corner, then crossing stile to turn left, keeping to the edge of the field with hedge left.
Ignore the kissing gate in the first corner but continue around the field edge, skirting a wooded island with a pond, up the field to the top left corner, then right for about 70 paces and take a hedge gap left by the marker post. Then go right with hedge right to pass under power lines. Continue ahead to take the corner gap in the hedge turning left, keeping the hedge left, along the edge of the field.
(6) Keeping to the left of another small pond go through a wooden kissing gate and continue ahead over a small wooden bridge turning sharp right to reach, after 10 paces, a junction of paths. Ignore the path straight ahead and take the right-hand path to follow around the edge of the field keeping close to the hedge right to reach a kissing gate on your right. Take the kissing gate to join the Heart of England Way.
(7) Continue along the track past Blind Hall Farm, through a kissing gate adjacent to a cattle grid and stay along the track until you reach the main road. Turn left for 300 yards. Just before the houses, take the footpath on the opposite side of the road, through the kissing gate and go forward through a second kissing gate and along path with a fence right to go through two further kissing gates, eventually reaching Berkswell Church.
Exit the churchyard and turn left along Church Lane back past the Store and Stove Cafe to the car park in Lavender Hall Lane. (S/E)
