The Welsh Lane, an old drovers' route, runs across the south of the village, and other roads come from Brackley, Sulgrave, Weston and Wappenham.

Your route starts  from the Welsh Lane.      Go down Station Road over a

deep cutting.  There are fields on your right. The first house on your left is the former stationmaster's house for the "Helmdon for Sulgrave" station on the long abandoned Great Central railway. It opened in 1897, was later taken over by the LNER and closed in 1966. There have been moves to re-open the line for freight.

Below the  now sparse remains of the old station the line runs on an embankment and then crosses the valley on the nine arch Great Central viaduct which crosses the Helmdon brook, and was built during the 1890s.

After a tree-lined stretch of road, the second house on the left in Station Road is The Bungalow Stores, or 'Secky's'.

At the bottom of the road Grange Lane has a tunnel under the embankment to reach Grange Farm.

On the right at the bottom of the hill, you will find Helmdon County Primary School. This much regarded school has in excess of 100 pupils, over a third of whom come from Brackley and villages outside Helmdon.

Until as recently as 1992 a public house stood opposite called the Chequers, dating from around 1760.

The Bell, Helmdon's last remaining pub

Now turn right up Church Street. On the right, just before the Bell, is Leeden Tye fronted by a little shop where boot polish was once made. The Bell, so called in earlier times because it was the nearest alehouse in the village to the church, it is the only pub in the village today.

Shortly you will see the Reading Room where many of the village activities take place. The Reading Room is the focus for many of the groups in the village and is the venue for many of their activities and events.  It has on its walls the trophies from the Village of the Year competions won by Helmdon.

Almost opposite the Reading Room, on the other side of the road, is a short close. On the left is an old cottage called Shortlands.

The Old Bakehouse on Church Street

Walking on up Church Street, you reach on the right the Old Bakehouse, still open in the 1950s for villagers wanting newly baked bread.

The parish church of St Mary Magdalene, on the highest ground in the village, has stood by its old yew for many hundreds of years.

St Mary Magdalene Church

The present Manor Farm house

The Great Central Railway viaduct

The war memorial

The village is proud of its war memorial commemorating the fallen of worlds wars 1 and 2.    In 2009 an American memorial was set up beside it which honours the Americans who crashed at Astwell Castle Farm in 1943. 

The long barn at Priory Farm

Just on the left, along the Sulgrave Road, can be seen Priory Farm, which in Charles II's reign was the largest house in Helmdon. It has a large long barn.

Opposite Priory Farm is the road to Weston and Weedon Lois.  Just up the hill on the right are Weston Hill cottages and there is evidence that this building was originally the village school, though it was not on this site.

On each side of the Weston Road were the old stone quarries, which produced the pale Helmdon stone for so many years. The building material was used for many of the local houses as well as for much more famous ones.

Wappenham Road, Helmdon

Going back to Priory Farm turn left and as you go up Wappenham Road, you will find Fountain House, a late nineteenth-century brick house, on your right.  It has hosted drama productions, fetes and sales.

Just beyond, Magpie Cottage used to be the Magpie public house. It prospered while it catered for the drinking needs of the navvies employed on the Great Central Railway in the 1890s, and closed soon after.

A  little way up on the left is the Old House, fronted by a long abandoned shop, a flourishing butcher's business in the 30s.

Further up on the same side of the road is the mid-nineteenth century Baptist Chapel, now closed and awaiting re-development.

Above the little hill is Home Farm, the only fully working farm left inside the village. Some farmhouses were built outside the village as a result of the mid-eighteenth century enclosure of the open fields, and the land is still worked from them.

On the right you will find Field Way, at the end of which is Field View House

Then comes what is known as "the square".  On the right is Long Acre.

Proceeding down Cross Lane leads by the house called The Old Manor, and thence to the Old Cross, which used to be a public house. Here, and in several houses in Helmdon, are stone features obviously cut for more prestigious houses and used here because the masons had them left on their hands - or the stone could have come from Astwell castle which was drastically reduced in size in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

The footpath to Astwell