Following defeat at the Battle of Worcester in the English Civil War in 1651, King Charles II fled Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentary forces.

He travelled north and the route now forms The Monarch’s Way, a 625-mile footpath. The footpath joins the Barge Canal at Porter’s Mill and continues north to Siding Lane Bridge where it turns left past the leisure centre and high school and heads towards Westwood Park.

Famously, Charles avoided capture by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel House in Shropshire.