The Wolfords Joint Parish Council's modern take on the traditional ‘Beating of the Bounds’ happened on Saturday 12 September. More than a dozen parishioners gathered at the church, initially for the unveiling of the new footpath map ‘Wolfords Walks’ for Great and Little Wolford, beautifully designed and drawn by Jenny Henderson with some help from Kate Henderson for the set-up. One of these will be situated just outside the church and a second on the green in Little Wolford.
The walk started down the Todenham Road and along the brook to the west of the village, which is the parish and county boundary, going through the Crosslands field and the bottom of Diana Henderson’s field before picking up the footpath which follows the brook all the way to Wolford Wood. This was a lovely bit of the walk where we were lucky to see a barn owl disturbed from his roost in a tree he was sharing with a wasp’s or possibly a bee’s nest. We did not go into Wolford Wood but walked up beside it and past the lake before going through further fields and crossing the Moreton Road. We walked behind the hedge alongside the road back into the village and the church. From the church we went down the well-trodden footpath to Nethercote and up the hill to the Village Hall where we were greeted with homemade soup and various sweet goodies, thank you to the various cooks. In all, the walk was around 3.5 miles, and we were blessed with Goldilocks weather – neither too hot nor too cold and no rain. As much of this was over private land not normally open to the public, TWJPC would like to thank all the landowners, Crosslands, Diana Henderson, Goodwins and Wrench’s who allowed us to walk over their land for this one day. Next year we are hoping to be able to arrange a similar walk based around Little Wolford.