The Stratford-upon-Avon Greenway – Route 5 – National Cycle Network

In this video we follow route 5 of the national cycle network from Long Marston, through Milcote and into Stratford-upon-Avon using the Greenway. This route follows the old Honeybourne Line that ran from Cheltenham to Honeybourne and onto Stratford. We pass the old Milcote station, Chamber crossing halt and the Stratford race course platform. We have lunch at the lovely Bobbys cafe and head back.

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hello and thank you for joining me today we’re in Shakespeare’s County to be or not to be that is the question happily this video is to be and we’ll be making our way through the beautiful warshire countryside from the small village of long maren along the Stratford upon aen Greenway which is completely traffic free into Stratford upon aen the birthplace of William shakes bear [Music] we’re starting today’s ride in the village of long maren and if the rails in the road here don’t give away the fact that we’re about to ride down an Old Railway line the fact that the starting point is on Station Road should you will find a small amount of parking here in this gravel lby and from here we’ll be making our way up to Stratford upon aen Greenway along this disused rail line to Stratford of paven itself now today I’m bringing with me my own Flesh and Blood my two youngest children one of which will ride some of the way in this bike trailer and you can see immediately I had a problem getting over these sleepers that they put in place over the entrance to the Greenway at this point my 3-year-old was not in the trailer so with a bit of maneuvering I was able to get this over but I’m struggling to see the point of these sleepers that block the entrance to the greenway there seems to be neither rhyme nor reason to having them here but we’ve made it past so let’s keep going the 5 miles along Route 5 of The National cycle Network towards Stratford upon aen so we’re now riding on the former Railway line that linked the village of Holborn on the csw’s line to Stratford upon aen this was actually the first Railway line to reach Stratford upon aen in 1859 the railway was constructed by the Oxford Worcester and wolver Hampton Railway which later merged with the Great Western Railway but today there were no trains running on the line we now have this fantastic Greenway which forms part of the national cycle Network Route 5 and I think cycle routes like this are absolutely fantastic safe spaces for you and little ones to get out and enjoy some cycling I can’t get enough of roots like this and I really don’t think you can have too much of a good thing after some lovely flat cycling we make our way to wire Lane which we need to cross over to carry on up Route 5 towards Stratford you can see there’s no barriers this side but on the other side theyve put these ridiculous sleepers in again which my four-year-old has got stuck on and I’m going to struggle to get the trailer over thank you w your Council so after helping my four-year-old through it was my turn to try and maneuver the trailer over these uh sleepers as you can see it got stuck I needed to physically lift it up to get it over luckily at this point still my 3-year-old was still riding his balance bike so he wasn’t in it so it did make it a little bit easier but I really do struggle to see the point of these when you’d easily get a motorbike through there my only thought is the council probably don’t want people on ability Scooters or wheelchairs or people on trikes coming down here for some reason not quite sure how to get away with that but that’s the only logic I could see for these silly sleeper barriers a little further up the greenway we come across another Junction to the left is a farm track and to the right is a rather new cycle path that looks like it’s very recently been put in the cyclopath heads over to RAF longm and what looks to be a rather new housing estate that build over there this crossing point which is aptly called Airfield Crossing and here unlike the beginning of the greenway and where it crosses wire Lane there are no barriers at all so my four-year-old is able to ride through with no trouble at all unimpeded by barriers I was able to take in some of the lovely views of the Farmland surrounding this Greenway now I promise this whole video is not going to be be moaning about the barriers on this Greenway so let’s get back to a little more history about this Railway while this line was being constructed from honeyborne to Stratford another line was also being constructed and that was north of Stratford upon Haven into Birmingham this was opened just under a year later in 1860 and was run by the Great Western Railway however when first constructed the two lines did not meet in the center of Stratford and there was a gap with each having a Terminus at either end of the town at this point I’m going to pause just to have a look at this fantastic bench constructed out of Old Railway Sleepers at this point my 3-year-old was getting a bit tired pushing himself Along on his balance bike so I strapped that to the back of the trailer and put him in and look how happy he was about it so back in 1860 we had this line heading up from honeyb to the south of straford upon Haven where it terminated and we had a separate Line run by the gwr running from the north of Stratford up to Birmingham the two branches were connected in 1861 but the current station in the center of Stratford wasn’t constructed until 1863 and it was later that year that the Oxford Worcester and wolver Hampton Railway that ran this line merged with the Great Western Railway who ran the line coming into Stratford from the north do you want to form an alliance with [Music] me absolutely I it was probably somewhat of a forone conclusion that these two Railway companies would merge given that using this line and the line north of Stratford meant you could run through trains from Birmingham down to Bristol or London as we carry on steaming down the line and pass over yet another Farm track where we don’t have any anti- accessibility barriers we are fast approaching the first station that we’re going to come to on this line there was actually a station at longm and where we began and the trains actually still run into to longm although into an industrial estate there where there are large sidings for industrial units so the first station site that we get to cycle pass is at mil coat as we approach the site of mil coat station cyclists are directed to head up the left Fork here or is rather a narrow and bumpy track not perfect for having the bike trailer on the back there is a lovely Cafe here but as a cyclist you’re directed around the back and to the crossing point next to the bins of the cafe Walkers are directed down the main part of the greenway which passes in front of this lovely Cafe which occupies an Old Railway Carriage just before the route crosses the road here at mil coat again we have to cross over these silly sleeper barriers which as I said here are located next to the bins and I had to at this point get my wife to help me as my little one was in the trailer and I couldn’t have done this without two people this is a fairly busy road that we cross at mil coat so do take care and when we got to the other side we were faced with this a kissing gate that the trailer wouldn’t go through and a gap that wasn’t large enough for the trailer to go through this meant detaching the trailer from my bike and then lifting it over the gate it seems ridiculous to me that on a Greenway which is meant for family cycling that we have to go through this rigar to get our child trailer over the gate here it’s a good job that Mrs cycling rate is made of Sterner stuff and that she’s able to help me lift this over again if I was on my own I couldn’t have done this for us this is a bit of a faf but for other people that may be less able-bodied this could put a halt to their trip down this wonderful Greenway and what a shame only a blinking idiot would think that these barriers are a good idea now there is currently some construction going on at this point where they’re resurfacing the greenway and because of that the normal cycle route has been diverted through where we’ve just been through so there is a larger gate in the car park currently blocked by the construction however the trail from that other access point does not look suitable for Child trailer and in any case it’s not fair to have these barriers and that because of construction certain people should be blocked from using the greenway many people might think these barriers are in place to stop motorbikes but just to put that in perspective while we’re using the greenway today we were passed by some youths on a motorbike that was the last barrier that we encountered on the greenway so I’ll stop my whining about them now and enjoy the site here of the old mil Co station where you can see the platform is still intact trains crossed over a level crossing at mil coat and then came into the station here and on this old photograph from walshire railway.com you can see that the platform and the trees are the only remaining features left as we steam out the station we can talk a little bit about the demise of this line it actually avoided the beaching Cuts in the mid mid 60s but local trains were never particularly popular as they ran through this Royal Farmland so local passenger Services were cut in 1969 but more long-distance trains did still carry on through including the cornishman express which traveled from Birmingham to the Southwest it was also a popular route for freight trains but it was unfortunately a derailment of a coal train in 1976 further south down the line near wincham that persuaded British Rail to close the line for good after nearly 100 20 years of surface at this point you may be able to see that the surface is pretty bumpy but this is where there are widening and resurfacing the track so it’s not a permanent thing a little further up the route we cross chain per Crossing halt where there was a small halt in between Stratford and mil coat station here the scenery really opens up and you can see the farm Landing in the surrounding area and if we look behind us we’ll see the point of where the actual chamber Crossing halt was you can see the crossing keeper Cottage on the left as we look South down the line where we’ve just come from the halt was opened in 1904 but obviously was not very busy being in a very rural area and it closed in 19 16 and never reopened after the section of lime was closed in 1976 it was obviously turned into this Greenway by warshire County Council and what a great place it is to cycle but there has been a lively campaign to reopen this section of track down to Long Maron this would allow trains to run south from strapon aen which they currently can’t do and onto honeyborne where the trains could join the existing national rail network and provide quicker access South for the resident of statford upon Haven however after strong opposition and a feasibility study done it was announced in 2022 by the government that they would not be progressing with plans to reopen this section of line so for now the greenway is safe the campaign to reopen the line turned out to be somewhat of a wild goose chase but it’s a really interesting dilemma should old railway lines like this be preserved as Greenways or should we reopen lines where necessary to provide the benefits of rail travel for future Generations I’m not sure there’s a straightforward answer to that question but let me know what you think in the comments further up the route we pass over the river Stow this is a tributory to the river aen which will shortly pass over as we continue up the line towards Stratford upon aen we cross over the river aen using stanel bridge on the outskirts of Stratford this bridge is of ltis Giro design and was actually built in 1908 so significantly after the opening of the Railway the reason for this being the railway was originally single track and wasn’t double tracked until 1908 when the original single track Bridge was replaced with this one [Music] currently as you can see only half the bridge is in use for the greenway after crossing the bridge you get some great views of Stratford race course horse racing took place here as far back as 1718 but officially the race course did not open here until 1755 from here it’s just a short ride to finish the greenway on the edge of Stratford upon aen completing our 5 Mile ride from long maren from this point you can carry on through Stratford upon aen on Route 5 and head towards the Stratford canal and Carry On on your journey North or you can head along Route 41 into the center of Stratford upon Haven or you can do what we did stop at this lovely Cafe called Bobby’s in an Old Railway Carriage have something to eat and then turn around and make your way back to Long maren this Cafe sits on the former site of the Stratford upon aen Racecourse platform a small station that was used quite obviously for passengers visiting the race course adjacent to it the platforms here opened in 1933 here with a view looking South and to the north of the platforms the railway joined up with the former Stratford upon aen and Midland Junction Railway the food that I had from bobbi’s was a dish fit for the gods definitely somewhere I would recommend stopping at I really enoy enoyed the meal there and then we turned around and made our way back to Long maren I really hope you’ve enjoyed the video but if you haven’t what’s done is done and if you have enjoyed the video please do give it a like and consider subscribing to the channel it really does keep things on track you can also support the channel by buying me a beer via the link in the description or buying one of my cycling Nate mugs a big thank you to those that already have and a big thank you to you for watching Thank you very much and happy cycling [Music]