The Haxey Strip Cycle Route

Haybales in a field
Difficulty
Moderate
Distance
14.4 ml
Duration
0.50 hr
Ascent
209 ft
Descent
206 ft
Junction High Street and Church Street, Epworth, DN9 1ER

This circular route takes you through open arable farming countryside with fine views, quaint small villages and historic sites.

Highlights 

Epworth  

Along this route keep an eye out for the strip farming which was once prolific in the Isle of Axholme. A relic of medieval farming, the narrow strips covered almost all the cultivated ground. Each owner had several strips around the parish, giving everyone a variety of soils. Up until the 1970s much of this system survived, but now most strips are joined into wider areas more suitable for modern machinery.

Epworth Turbary  

A Lincolnshire Trust nature reserve. Here, landowner John de Mowbray, through the Mowbray Deed gave commoners the right to cut peat for fuel.  

Graizelound  

A small village where several surviving narrow farming strips can be seen, most of which are used for market garden crops.