This is basically a way to walk from interesting church to interesting church. Today I did the section from St Marys Whitbeck to St Michael and All Angels Bootle.
I am not good at following directions (ask anyone I've worked for) and so I have a tendency to get lost (a lot). But even so it seems to be a Cumberland tradition to have good quality signs at the start of a footpath (often not actually telling you where they go) and then stop bothering to have any further signs along the way.
As a result I ended up walking on a footpath that petered out and had to walk along the A595 for two or three kilometres. Very frightening.
Eventually I found my way back on the track and passed the rather lovely Barfield Tarn (which I am pleased to say you can not see from the A595).
Click for next image
From then on it was a piece of cake. I got to see the church, which seemed unusual for Cumberland in that it looked like a fairly typical Victorian model rather than the usual medieval or ersatz medieval. Victorian it was but bathed in the sunset glow the red (sandstone?) seemed gorgeous.
However, Bootle church is about 2km from Bootle Station, so seemingly having finished the walk, it was a long trek to get a train.
When I got there I discovered that the 8pm train had been cancelled so I had to wait an hour, which was not too bad in the setting sun.
The signal man came out of his box to tell me the news about the cancellation, offering me a cup of tea as a concellation. Now that's not something that happens in Medway.
Jonathan Brind