The Macmillan Way is a long-distance footpath in England that links Boston, Lincolnshire to Abbotsbury in Dorset. The route's distance is 290 miles (467 km).
It is promoted to raise money for the charity Macmillan Cancer.
The fully way marked route follows existing footpaths, bridleways and byways, and small stretches of minor roads when these are unavoidable. It runs across open fen country for its first 30 miles (48 km) and for the rest of its journey it then follows the course of the oolitic limestone belt.
The Macmillan Way starts from Boston and then runs across the Fens to their western edge at Kate's Bridge near Bourne before joining the limestone belt.
From Boston it heads to Stamford and then along the shore of Rutland Water to Oakham. It then leads south and west via Warmington to Stow-on-the-Wold, then through the Cotswolds via Cirencester and Tetbury to Bradford-on-Avon. Then through Somerset and into Dorset via Castle Cary and Sherborne to Abbotsbury on the coast.
The Macmillan Ways are a network of long-distance footpaths in England. Others are:
· The Macmillan Way West from Castle Cary in Somerset to Barnstaple in Devon, 163 kilometres (101 mi) (Boston to Barnstaple is 557 kilometres (346 mi));
· The Macmillan Abbotsbury Langport Link, which creates a 38.5 kilometres (23.9 mi) short-cut for walkers from Abbotsbury to Barnstaple, a total of 202 kilometres (126 mi);
· The Macmillan Cross Cotswold Pathway (*)from Banbury to Bath, 138 kilometres (86 mi), mostly on the main Macmillan Way;
· The Cotswold Link, 33.5 kilometres (20.8 mi) from Banbury to Chipping Campden where it links to the Cotswold Way National Trail.
(*) This is the path we will be taking.
Who created this footpath:
The Macmillan ways Association was founded in 1997 by Peter Titchmarsh and his wife Janet. The decision to create the path, name it and in doing so, support Macmillan, was a personal one dear to them both. Peter and Janet worked tireless to develop the main route, walking and re-walking all sections, taking numerous photographs and describing all twists and turns throughout all 290 miles to ensure that the subsequent guidebook contained as much detail as possible.
Planning the route was only a small part of the work involved as in order to ‘way mark’ a long distance footpath permission has to be gained from all of the county councils whose area the route passes and to include mapping in a publication, the permission of Ordnance survey is also required.
This, as you can well imagine, took considerable time but all of Peter and Janet’s hard work was worth it.
Since the opening of the Macmillan Way, over £350,000 has been raised for Macmillan Cancer Support.
(Source: Macmillan official website)
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