| Aubourn sits in the valley formed by the River Witham as it bends north eastwards, 7 miles south of Lincoln. Several small streams flow northward into the Witham nearby, including the River Brant. The village is enclosed to the north and east by the 'wash lands' of the Witham and has historically been prone to frequent flooding. After the last war high flood banks were built along both shores of the Witham to reduce the risk.
| Blankney lies between Metheringham and Scopwick beside the B1188 on the edge of Lincoln Heath. To the east the limestone dip slope gradually declines until at Car Dyke it meets the Witham peat fens.
| You will find Bloxholm and Brauncewell at the edge of the limestone dip slope of Lincoln Heath as it meets a narrow zone of clays and gravels (never more than five or six miles wide) that disappears eastwards beneath the fens.
| Car Dyke runs for 76 miles from the River Witham near Washingborough to Waterbeach in Cambridge. Archaeologists now believe that the dyke formed part of a Roman 'ringvaart' constructed at the beginning of the second Century. This system controlled freshwater and tidal flows, allowing the fens to be drained. Its purpose would have been to service industry (salt, iron and ceramics) rather than agriculture or trade.
| Dominated by the limestone hills where the Kesteven Uplands meet Lincoln Cliff, Culverthorpe and its neighbouring villages nestle on their northernmost slopes. Cut by an ice age tributary of the River Trent as melt-water flowed east from the Vale of Belvoir, this prehistoric river has created a gently rolling landscape with views over the countryside.
| The River Slea (Anglo-saxon, 'muddy one') is 18 miles long from its source until it joins the Witham at Chapel Hill. It rises 75 metres above sea level and enters North Kesteven from the west of Wilsford as The Beck.
| Take a brief look at all of the Stepping Out walks in North Kesteven.
| The Lincolnshire dialect word 'barff' means a hill running parallel to lower ground. A 'barff' runs most of the way from Timberland Delph, south of Martin, to Plough Hill at Branston Booths. This low ridge (some 18 metres above sea level) marks the dividing line between the dip slope of the limestone escarpment and the Witham Peat Fens. Made up of clays, silts and sands it is never more than a few miles wide. Through it the Romans cut Car Dyke, while monastic houses at Linwood and Nocton took advantage of its higher ground and fertile soil.
| Nocton and Dunston are separated by less than a mile. The villages lie to the east of the B1188 Lincoln Road, on the edge of the limestone dip slope. Rising gently to the west are Nocton and Dunston Heaths, sloping gently to the east, Nocton and Dunston Fens. Both parishes form part of the ancient Danelaw wapentake of Langoe (Old Norse 'heather'). Both settlements include farmsteads on the heath towards the A15 and isolated dwellings to the east beyond the Car Dyke as far as the Witham.
| North and South Rauceby lie on the Southern Lincolnshire Edge at one of North Kesteven's highest points. Antiquarians even used the name 'Rauceby Altera' and looking east on a clear day Boston Stump can be seen from the hill above Heath Farm. Anciently known as Rosbi and listed in Domesday as Roscebi, the name derives from the Old Scandanavian for Rauthr+by, or 'Rauthr's village'.
| For nearly 1,500 years between the Roman Occupation and the dissolution of the monasteries, Lincoln owed its strategic and political importance to its situation in a gap in the Lincoln Edge at the meeting oftwo rivers, the Till and the Witham. These rivers met in a natural lake at Brayford Pool and in about 120AD Roman engineers took advantage of this harbour to connect the colony to the River Trent via Britain's first canal, the Fossdyke Navigation.
| In 1872 the River Slea was described by Trollope as 'a neverfailing source of pure water'. As lateas 1960 it was a trout river renowned with sportsmen as far away as Yorkshire. But in 1962 the river stopped flowing through Sleaford for the first time in recorded history and by the drought summer of 1976 the flow had seriously deteriorated. In 1983/4 the river completely dried up.
| The 4000 acres of the parish of Scopwick and Kirkby Green lie on the eastern edge of the old Lincoln Heath, roughly half way between Sleaford and Lincoln. The villages, separated by just over a mile, lie beside an old drove road which now forms part of the B1191 running east from the A15 to the old ferry at Kirkstead Bridge. West of the A15, the road loses its designation, becoming Temple Road. It once connected the wool trading centre at Kirkstead Abbey directly to Welbourn on Lincoln Cliff, traversing the isolated heath and linking its Templar granges with medieval Boston, a thriving Hanseatic port, second only to London.
| Skellingthorpe Old Wood is an ancient woodland. Originally it would have been populated by native deciduous trees such as oak, ash, lime and hazel. The wood is referred to in Doomsday as the 'Lound'. Lound is a Viking name for a wood with some form of important ritual use and an area of woodland to the south is still known as Ash Lound. The ash tree was worshipped by the Vikings as the link between Heaven and Earth.
| Today Stapleford Wood is owned and managed by the Forestry Commission, which purchased the land from Trinity College Cambridge in 1945. The 750 acre wood was clear felled during the First World War and much of it was replanted in the 1950s, predominantly with exotic conifers to supply local industry.
| Wellingore and Temple Bruer
A cycle route along green lanes and quiet countryside roads
9miles/14.5kms
| Tunman Wood is a 132.23 acre area of ancient woodland at Eagle Barnsdale, just outside Thorpe on the Hill, Lincoln, and is one of the southern most points of the wildlife rich wedge of countryside that runs right into central Lincoln. The wood was bought from Lafarge Aggregates Limited in February 2009 by a partnership made up of Lincolnshire County Council, North Kesteven District Council and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to ensure continued access; safeguard the current Stepping Out walk; and to provide future opportunities for developing conservation activities.
| Welbourn is situated at a prominent point on the dramatic scarp of Lincoln Cliff. This ancient settlement, which boasts several Roman finds lies close to the Jurassic Way, a prehistoric track runs for many miles along the English limestone edge from the Mendips of Somerset to the Humber estuary. To the east of the scarp, the Southern Lincolnshire Edge lies between two gaps carved by large glacial rivers, the Trent at Ancaster (long since diverted) and the Witham at Lincoln. Pottergate runs just east of Welbourn and is the name given to the Jurassic Way south of Lincoln, while to the north it is called Middle Street.
| Navenby, Wellingore and Temple Bruer lie at the western edge of Lincoln Heath close to the Cliff. 'Bruer' comes from the Norman-French word 'bruyere', meaning 'heath'.
| 
|
