Eaglethorpe Old Orchard

Bank holiday Monday turned out nice this year. We did the usual bank holiday stuff, a spot of gardening, a visit to a May Fayre, and spent too much money at a garden centre. We also took time out to visit another of Northamptonshire's lovely Pocket Parks, a beautiful blossom-laden orchard near Oundle, and perhaps the model for our own neglected village orchard.

The village of Warmington is bypassed by the A605 Oundle - Peterborough road, and it was the building of this bypass which led to the creation of the pocket park. Unfortunately the new road carved straight through the heart of the old orchard, so this remaining section is quite small, but we found that even the traffic noise from the adjacent road didn't spoil the peaceful ambience of this delightful space.

The site is known variously as Warmington Old Orchard, and The Orchard, Eaglethorpe, and I suppose the latter name is more accurate since it resides in the tiny Hamlet of Eaglethorpe. We initially followed directions from the excellent England in Particular website, which proved to be less than useful. It didn't help that Warmington is blessed with two pocket parks, and sign-posting for the orchard only appears when you're nearly there. My advice is to have a look at the map on the above website, it's certainly worth the hunt.