London · Cotswolds Stone Villages Loop

Honey-stone villages, ridge lanes and lazy afternoon light.

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Why this ride

Honey-stone villages, ridge lanes and lazy afternoon light. 541 km round from London - plan on about 9 h 50 of riding. It goes by way of Weedon Beck and Stone. It keeps to quiet secondary roads.

Roadbook

1. London start

   London is the one place on the map where the best advice is to leave the bike at the edge. The centre around Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square is a maze of one-way streets, bus lanes, taxis and tourists, and parking is limited and expensive. The city also has a congestion charge and a low-emission zone, whose rules for motorcycles have changed over the years, so check the current conditions for your own machine before you ride in. For a start and finish, a quiet side street or a secure garage on the outskirts is a better plan.

   What you are stopping for here is history on a large scale. St Martin-in-the-Fields, a handsome eighteenth-century church with a tall steeple and a classical portico, stands at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square, and its crypt hosts a café, a gallery and a brass-rubbing centre. It is famous for its lunchtime concerts and for its work with homeless people. Across the road, Nelson's Column rises over the square, with its bronze lions, and the National Gallery stretches along the north side.

   The city has some 7.5 million people, and it is never quite finished with itself. Roman Londinium was a muddy trading post on the Thames, and the medieval city grew into a great port, burning down in 1666 and rebuilding in brick and stone. Westminster, a short walk south, holds the Palace of Parliament and the Abbey, where English monarchs have been crowned for nearly a thousand years. The riding here is entirely about getting out: the A3, A4 and A40 lead to quiet lanes in Surrey, the Chilterns and Kent, and a very early start on a Sunday morning makes it easy.

   Fuel is available, but it is among the most expensive in the country, so top up on the outskirts. For a drink, a pub in the side streets off Whitehall, with its brass and etched glass, is as London as it gets. And when the light fades, the square is full of buskers, pigeons and people, and the lamps along the Mall glow.

2. Weedon Beck fuel

   Roads, canals and railways all squeeze through the same gap at Weedon Bec, and that is the key to its story. The village lies in the gentle Northamptonshire countryside near Daventry, where the old Roman road of Watling Street, now the A5, the Grand Union Canal and the West Coast Main Line run side by side through a shallow valley. For centuries this has been a natural corridor between London and the northwest.

   Weedon's most remarkable feature is hidden behind a high brick wall. During the Napoleonic Wars, when invasion seemed a real threat, the government built the Royal Ordnance Depot here, about as far from the coast as you can get in England, to store arms and gunpowder safely inland. A branch of the canal ran into the depot, through a portcullis gate, linking its storehouses to the national waterway network. Local legend says that the depot's pavilions were intended to house King George III and the government if Napoleon landed, though historians doubt it. The depot was used by the army until the twentieth century, and many of its buildings survive, some now home to businesses and shops.

   The countryside around Weedon is rolling farmland, with hedges, small woods and villages built of the local ironstone, which gives the houses a warm brown and golden colour. The canal towpaths are pleasant for a walk, with narrowboats moored along the banks. Nearby, Althorp, the Spencer family estate where Diana, Princess of Wales, grew up and is buried, lies a few miles to the east.

   For riders, the A5 is a fast but busy road, while the lanes around the villages are quieter and more interesting, with gentle curves, short climbs and views over the fields. The surface can be rough and muddy in places, especially after rain or the harvest, and the roads can be narrow. Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix, lies within easy reach to the south, and the Cotswolds begin further west, with their honey-coloured stone villages and winding roads.

   Weedon Bec has a few shops and pubs, and Daventry, a few miles to the northwest, has supermarkets and fuel stations. A pint and a pie in a village pub is a classic English stop, though the drink-driving limit is strict, so keep it to soft drinks while you are riding.

3. Stone food

   Narrowboats, breweries and a Georgian high street make Stone one of the more likeable market towns in Staffordshire. It stands on the River Trent and the Trent and Mersey Canal, which brought prosperity to the town when it opened in the late eighteenth century, with boatyards, warehouses and locks still lining the waterway today. The high street is lined with old coaching inns, independent shops and cafés, and the town has a relaxed, welcoming feel.

   The canal is the heart of the place. Built under the guidance of the engineer James Brindley and backed by Josiah Wedgwood, the pottery manufacturer, it linked the Potteries to the ports of Liverpool and Hull, allowing fragile ceramics to be transported safely by water. Stone became a busy canal town and a brewing centre, and its water was prized for beer. Today the locks and towpaths are popular with walkers and boaters, and the canal-side pubs are a pleasant place for a break.

   Stone is also linked to naval history: John Jervis, the admiral who became Earl St Vincent and was a mentor to Nelson, was born near the town. To the north, the Potteries towns around Stoke-on-Trent have a rich industrial heritage, and the Wedgwood factory and museum at Barlaston, a few miles away, tell the story of English ceramics. Trentham, just north, has large landscaped gardens and a monkey forest.

   The riding from Stone is varied. The roads around the town are busy, with the A34 and the M6 nearby, but heading northeast you soon reach the Staffordshire Moorlands and the edge of the Peak District, where the A53 climbs past Leek toward the Roaches, a jagged gritstone ridge, and on to Buxton across open moorland. These are some of the best biking roads in England, with sweeping curves and wide views, but they are also heavily policed and often windy and wet. To the south, the lanes through the Staffordshire countryside lead toward Cannock Chase, a forested heath with quiet roads and wildlife.

   Stone has cafés, pubs and restaurants on the high street, making it a good food stop, and fuel stations and supermarkets are easy to find on the edge of town. Oatcakes, a Staffordshire speciality that looks like a soft pancake and is usually filled with cheese and bacon, are the local breakfast, best eaten hot.

4. London finish

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