Pete's Walks- Marsworth, Tring Station, Halton (page 4 of 5)
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.
The track headed north and then northwest through the woods (I met some more Duke of Edinburgh groups along here). At its end, I crossed a road and continued down a drive into the grounds of RAF Halton. After a couple of hundred yards or so, the public footpath bore slightly right from the drive, running through trees to reach a sharp bend in another drive on the RAF base. Here I followed the drive as it turned right (another footpath, not shown on the OS map, goes straight on here). The drive soon ran past some Rugby pitches and other pitches on the right. Shortly beyond where these ended, waymarks indicated where the public footpath turned right into a wood - almost immediately I kept right at a fork. After two or three hundred yards, the public footpath turned sharply left (the track it had been on continued straight on, and I almost missed this turning).
The path going northwest through Wendover Woods
The path going northwest through Wendover Woods
The path going northwest through Wendover Woods
The path through the grounds of RAF Halton
The path through the grounds of RAF Halton, following the drive past the sports pitches
The path through the grounds of RAF Halton, after it turned right off the drive
The path through the grounds of RAF Halton, after it turned sharply left
When the path left the wood, I went half-right across some grass to a waymark post and a gate into the graveyard around Halton church. I followed the path to the church gate, then turned right for a short distance through the village of Halton until the road crossed the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal. Here I turned right along the towpath, with the canal on my left. Almost straight away I spotted a female Mandarin duck with two large ducklings - I've seen them on this arm of the canal before (including near where it ends in the centre of Wendover). I soon passed under a bright blue metal bridge and a little further on I passed the other side of the Rugby pitches I'd walked past a few minutes earlier. Just where they ended, I stopped on a bench to eat my packed lunch.
Halton church
I thought these small flints inserted into the mortar between the stones of the church had an attractive effect (the text of the church's Grade II listing describes it as "Built from squared blocks of sarsen or greyweather stone, probably from near High Wycombe, the joints galletted with pieces of flint")
Where I joined the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal at Halton
A female Mandarin duck - it had two ducklings with it, but I didn't see the much more colourful drake
The blue bridge over the canal at Halton
The Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal
Lunch over, I continued along the towpath - the canal here has water in it but is not navigable, and is a haven for wildlife. I saw a footpath waymark just as I reached Harelane bridge, and I think this must be where the other path through RAF Halton must come out. For much of the way now there were tall trees either side of the canal, but there were also more open sections.
The Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal
The Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal (this is taken from under Harelane Bridge, which I think is near where the other path through RAF Halton comes out)
The Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal
The Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal