Pete's Walks - The Chiltern Way
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
Day 26 10/8/05 Berkhamsted Common to Dunstable Downs (7.2 miles each way)
Parked at Dunstable Downs visitor centre.
By coincidence, Dunstable Downs was featured yesterday on Look East (the BBC’s local news programme for the East Anglia region) - it was recommended as a cheap day out for a family. Last year it was one of the ‘Seven wonders of the East’, seven natural features selected by the viewers in East Anglia. It’s not surprising it’s so popular, the views are absolutely stunning. I might be biased, living only a mile or so away, but I honestly don’t think I’ve come across a more spectacular view anywhere else on the Chiltern Way – an almost 180 degree panorama over the Vale of Aylesbury and beyond, up to 50 or 60 miles away on a clear day, with the shapely promontory of Ivinghoe Beacon being an attractive feature in the foreground.
I did today’s walk in the opposite direction to usual, as I wanted to complete my journey at Dunstable Downs where I’d started it way back in early May. However, I’ll describe the route as I walked it on my return trip (i.e. from Berkhamsted Common to Dunstable Downs) so that it follows on from all the other route descriptions. In any case, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to report on my walk from the Downs to Berkhamsted Common. I started walking unusually early for me, at 9.10am, as the Downs are only a 5-minute drive from my home. I had been getting up earlier and setting off earlier when I had a drive of 50 minutes or more to reach my start point, but have kept the same routine as I’ve got nearer to home, so consequently I have started my walks earlier and earlier. I made good progress this morning, not having to worry too much about navigating as I already knew about two thirds of the route from previous walks I’d done, so I reached the turn round point at Berkhamsted Common by about 11:20. I realized why I missed a turn here two days ago, because a fallen tree obscured the path I should have turned on to and also because the Chiltern Way waymark was a bit misleading, pointing halfway between the path I should have taken and the one I mistakenly stayed on. I celebrated completing my ‘backwards’ walk with some water and a Snickers bar, then set off back the way I’d come.
The path from Berkhamsted Common continued through the beech wood for a few hundred yards until it reached a macadam drive. This soon crossed a wide grass avenue called Prince’s Riding, with Ashridge House off to my right and the Bridgewater monument about a mile to my left (tall column that can be climbed via spiral staircase inside, erected in memory of the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater who was responsible for much of the canal network – bit surprised the Chiltern Way didn’t actually visit this, but then it does seem to have avoided several of the more popular places). The drive passed part of Ashridge Golf Course, then reached a farm courtyard. A track led through another bit of wood and across another part of the Golf Course, in front of the club house, to another macadam drive. This led to a T-junction, after which a path between fences led to another short stretch across another part of the golf course, before going downhill through the wood once more. Another fenced path then led on to the car park of the Bridgewater Arms in Little Gaddesden.
Having crossed the road here, another fenced path led to a small meadow, and then a clear path across two or three more fields led to a five-way junction of paths near the hamlet of Hudnall. A steepish path then led downhill into the wide Gade Valley (last crossed at Water End on Day 9), where I crossed a main road (running between the two strangely named towns of Hemel Hempstead and Leighton Buzzard). The climb up the other side of the valley was steeper than the descent I’d just done, but the views over the valley made it well worth the effort – it was one of the most attractive Chiltern valleys I’d seen on the whole walk, with an unusual view of Ivinghoe Beacon at one end. The path (one I’d walked three or four times before) now led through a small wood. Just on the other side, the Chiltern Way forked right across a corn field (where they were in the process of baling the straw) and then across a pasture to a kissing gate, where a short drive was followed to reach a lane at Studham.
Studham and the next village I reached, Whipsnade, are both neighbours of Kensworth where I live, so most of the rest of the route was well-known to me. From the lane, a path led half-left down a slight hill through another corn field (not yet harvested), crossed another lane, and then followed a right-hand hedge through another field. In the next field (cows), the path turned right to cross another pasture, then picked up a bridleway leading through a wood. At the end of the wood, I followed a very familiar path alongside another right-hand hedge through two more large fields to a small copse, where I reached the perimeter fence of Whipsnade Zoo (or Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, as it now calls itself).
The fence is one of those tall mesh ones supported by concrete pillars, angled outwards at the top. Local legend has it that the fence was originally erected facing the other way round, but the zoo found it had more trouble keeping local wildlife such as foxes and badgers out, than keeping the exotic animals in, so it was turned round. This certainly hasn’t stopped the local squirrels from visiting the zoo – as I walked along the fence I three times saw one of them run up the zoo side of the fence and leap onto overhanging branches to make an escape.
When I was a child in Kensworth, I sometimes lay awake at night listening to the wolves in the zoo howling! Our milkman (a bit of a character who had the dairy farm just up the road) had a crazy old black Labrador who would sit in the middle of the road and howl back at the wolves! One morning in the 1960’s, my mother got up to find my father had left her a note before going off to work, telling her not to walk me and my brother to school as some wolves had escaped! She thought he was pulling her leg, until the neighbours told her it was true. Sadly, when the wolves were tracked down they couldn’t be tranquillized and had to be shot.
Whipsnade Church 22/10/05
I only saw a couple of small deer as I followed the zoo fence, usually there are wallabies to be seen. The path soon reached a lane – well, it was a lane until about 15 years ago when it was blocked to traffic, and nature is gradually reclaiming it. I followed this for a few hundred yards before turning off onto another field path that shortly led to Whipsnade Church. Passing through the churchyard, I crossed part of the huge village green and took a short road to the entrance of Whipsnade Tree Cathedral. This is a number of trees planted in the shape of a Cathedral (with a nave and aisles and side chapels, etc.), created in the 1930’s by Edmund Kell Blyth in remembrance of friends killed in World War 1. The Chiltern Way took a path alongside the Tree Cathedral, which led onto a private road. This was left shortly, as the Chiltern Way passed through the tiny (two small fields) Sallowsprings Nature Reserve, before rejoining the private road. This led onto a bridleway (another old friend of mine!) which took me to the top of the downs. I then followed the path along the downs and circled the visitor centre and its car park to make sure I didn’t miss out a single yard of the Chiltern Way, and that was it! Journey over!
It was only about 1.25pm when I got back to my car - I hadn’t stopped for lunch, but had walked the whole 14.4 miles without a break, other than for brief stops for water. The downs were particularly busy (probably because of the TV programme the night before!), with all the car parks nearly full, and their were over 20 kites being flown (no Red Kites, sadly). It had been rather grey and murky when I set off this morning (we’d just had 20 minutes or so of drizzle at home), but it was a bit brighter now and the views were more extensive. But it was too crowded and noisy for my liking, so I drove home and had my picnic lunch in my parent’s garden.
I didn’t feel any great emotion when I finished the walk, not joy or elation or relief. I think I felt some satisfaction at having achieved a modest goal I’d set myself, but this was tinged with some sadness that the walk was over. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Chiltern Way, and it has really made this a wonderful summer for me. I told a friend recently that I’d got my life nicely sorted – three days a week I did a 15-mile walk, and the other four days I recovered from a 15-mile walk! Now I just have to plan which other walks I want to do next …
Total distance: 191.7 miles (each way)