They had plans, my girls; the plans you have when you are 12 and 14 and your world is suburban London. A trip to the mall, an afternoon at the cinema, a bit of Facebook, a lot of texting. These did not involve a walk across gently windswept fields and through the history of the West Midlands. Given that, they are bearing up quite well. Still, as we wander around the Warwickshire countyside, it does little to improve their humour that this trek has a distinctly religious flavour.
I was brought up within the Pentecostal church in London, where my mother was a minister. My wife was raised a Catholic. Both of us consequently find sitting in a church an evocative experience, although neither of us does it very often. The girls are warier. At my behest they once visited a small rural chapel in Jamaica for what I thought would be a glimpse of my own childhood experience, but as the minister's shouty sermon entered its second hour, any fascination or empathy they might have had faded.
The first point of interest on today's 9km circuit is Baddesley Clinton, a moated manor house just north of Warwick. Dating in part from the 15th century, it was home to one grand family, the Ferrers, for 500 years. The Elizabethan features and grounds are beautifully preserved, as one might expect from the National Trust, but perhaps its unique selling point, good for 115,000 visitors a year, is the "priest holes" - hiding places used to help Jesuit priests escape the attentions of Protestant persecutors. Alan Langstaff, the property manager, leads us to the top of one of them, a glass-covered hole in the corner of the kitchen. "Many houses have priest holes but the unique thing about this is that we actually know it was used," he says proudly. In 1591, apparently.
Terrified priests stooped for up to seven hours in a 1.2m cavern filled with drain water, knowing that their discovery would mean death. It all seems quite evocative, and we hope to impress upon the girls the horror of it all, but the drama hardly impacts. They've seen all sorts of trauma. They've watched Waterloo Road. They've seen Skins.
Out of the house, down a lane and through a wooden kissing gate we find St Michael's church, alive to the bustle of a villager's wedding, surrounded by a blanket of bluebells. We think it rude to intrude, so we make no attempt to enter, which pleases the younger half of our party. But we tell them what we've read: that the nave dates back to the 13th century and that it was extended in 1500 by one Nicholas Broome as penance for the murder of a priest in the house itself. One girl complains of the cold. Her sister answers her mobile.
The route from the house and the chapel dissects farmland where dozens of sheep are grazing. My wife, a farmer's daughter, points into the distance. "Look! Black sheep. You don't see them very often." We stop and count nine of them. The girls get to five. A mobile tootles again. London calling.
They take to a bench in the churchyard of St Laurence's church, Rowington, the village that was home to one branch of the Shakespeare family during the 15th century. The churchyard has a tidy war memorial overlooking the road and fabulously sculpted yew trees dotted throughout the grounds, standing like giant gherkins. The church itself, which dates back to medieval times, seems closed but from the side drifts Lesley Roberts, the verger.
She is unimposing in casual dress, a simple wooden cross necklace her sole adornment - but she stands no loitering and soon all four of us are inside the chapel. She'll tell us all about the church, she says with unnerving enthusiasm. The door closes behind us. The latch falls.
The church, dark and intimate, was originally built by Benedictine monks, she tells us. The north aisle was added after the Reformation. But lovely as it is, it is a struggle attracting visitors and it is a struggle keeping a rural congregation going. The vicar does his best. He is very enthusiastic.
She offers tea and more details and suddenly that latch looks heavy, but we lift it while mumbling something about the walking schedule. She gives the girls Fairtrade chocolate. At last they smile.
They seem less heavy-hearted now - a burst of blood sugar perhaps - and there are genuine flashes of interest as we negotiate kissing gates and skirt the startling bright fields of yellow rape. We stop repeatedly, mainly because the type on our route map is tiny. No other walkers seem to be using a magnifying glass. Our dissidents say we look mad.
Heading back home, as the girls have rallied, I feel a summary of the day is called for. "There will be a time when you'll appreciate the beauty of a field of bluebells, cows in a meadow, the quiet of a bridlepath," is the start, but it is also the end because they are listening to their iPods. I'm right, all the same.
• Hugh Muir and family walked route 4792 (The sectarian battleground), an "easy" 8.5km. For step-by-step instructions and local attractions, see here
