March 29, 2012: Preston to Peter’s Green

Tosh and I inaugurated the 2012 walking season with another session on the Chiltern Way, a nine-mile jaunt along the northern extension of this route – from Preston to Peter’s Green. I began my day by turning Fritz over to his Auntie Linda, who also dropped me off at the Maida Vale tube stop at about 8:30. I changed trains at Baker Street, stopping to advise an Asian woman which train to take to reach her destination on the Watford line. The eastbound train was already waiting, with its doors open, but the early morning commuters were jammed in like sardines and it wasn’t until I had reached the final car that I was able to insert myself into this mass of humanity for the three uncomfortable stops to King’s Cross.

As my cane made its tapping progress through this station, where I could soon see that there had been a major reconstruction of this site since my last visit – it was now as stylish and sleekly modern as its neighbor, St. Pancras. Underground this space remains a maze but when I at last reached the ticket hall I had time to renew my Senior Rail Card, buy a round-trip ticket to Stevenage on the 9:36 Leeds train, and purchase a smoothie and a maple pecan bun at the Upper Crust bakery. Then I sat down to read someone’s abandoned Independent. Tosh soon emerged from the ticket hall herself – she had gotten our departure time wrong by one minute – which meant that we would be on separate trains – but she she returned to the counter to get things straightened out.

There wasn’t much time between the announcement of our departure platform (5) and the departure of the train itself but we threw ourselves aboard this vehicle at the last minute and soon we were off. Because ours was a Leeds train we had been able to use our rail passes but not our London Freedom Passes – this also meant that there were no stops in the little over twenty minute passage to Stevenage, which is the site I had chosen for our jumping off point today.

We used the loos and made our way down to street level – where there was a long line of taxis. Our driver proved to be a very talkative chap, very proud of Stevenage and anxious to point out many spots along our complex route to Preston that had something of historical interest in them. When we began snaking through the hills we had the unusual sight of a large hawk pecking away at a dead rabbit on the surface of the highway itself. I made arrangements for our driver to pick us up at 5:00 in Peter’s Green, we paid him £17.00 for the ride, and on the benches in front of the Red Lion I stuffed maps and route-finding instructions into my map case. By 10:30 or so we were ready to make our departure.

It was a marvelous, clear, sunny day – part of a long cycle of beautiful spring weather we had been having recently; indeed much of England needed rain and we had dry surfaces to walk on throughout the day. I was wearing my new pair of brown cords, a blue sweatshirt, a rusty blue cap – but not my new boots, which I was still breaking in.

I had to get my compass out almost immediately – in order to make sure we were heading in the right direction – and we began with a bit of road walking on School Lane, which swept around a curve from south to east and deposited us on a road called St. Alban’s Highway. A small jog to the left here put us at the start of our first off-road stretch – with an underground reservoir on our left. We reached a field and followed a hedge to its corner. Ahead of us we could actually see two other walkers, gents (whom I called Mutt and Jeff because of their size difference) who had reached the corner and turned left – as we soon did ourselves. We had a hedge on our right now but after a while the path ducked through the hedge, which now accompanied us on the left. We now had a great panorama spread out below us with views of Hitchin and Stevenage in the valley ahead.

We passed Poynder’s End Farm, with much evidence of recent improvements. Statues of deer were placed around a little pond but there was also the presence of a lively Schnauzer, who came out to see us on our way. Daffodils bloomed everywhere today but it was too early in the year for bluebells. The route followed our hedge for a while, then it carried forward steeply downhill – where we could see Mutt and Jeff examining something in another hedgerow.

Eventually we reached the bottom of our hill and the B656 at Chaplefoot. A brief unpleasant stretch along this whizzing highway ensued but soon we were in the precincts of the local pub – not the Royal Oak anymore but the Rusty Gun. A cannon was mounted out front and I told Tosh that this was a well-disguised missile battery – installed in defense of the forthcoming London Olympics. (But the next day came a real story about improving security at the Hertfordshire gasworks that are to supply the Olympics.) There should have been a waymark on the highway – for Moon’s guidebook suggests a turnoff just beyond the pub but but we had to make this turn on trust, discovering waymarks only when we had reached a fence behind this establishment. On the other side of the fence there were half a dozen grunting pigs – and a sign warning passersby that these animals bite.

We turned left at a large chestnut tree and began a long ascent in a southerly direction –a typical gesture of a walk in the hilly Chilterns, where every descent is soon complimented by its opposite. I put on my new wrap-over sunglasses, as I was walking directly into the sun, and followed the hard-charging Tosh uphill. I was a bit anxious about a twinge in my left hip but as long as steps were not involved in the ascent I seemed to be doing okay.

We followed a left-hand hedge and then crossed open country – aiming for the fenced ruins of Minsden Chapel. Our route skirted this site along an edge of Minsden plantation and dropped briefly down to the B651. On the other side we could see a rising bridleway so, with some steeper gradients to struggle against, we followed tracks up to Hill End Farm. I am afraid that signage was a bit deficient hereabouts…there were lots of signs (often for the Hertfordshire Way) but the Chiltern Way badges were absent. Nevertheless I persevered as we climbed to a field edge and, on more level ground, continued along a hedge – moving in a mostly southeastern direction. There was a good deal of puzzlement over our departure from this plateau and I think we missed the right turnoff, soon deciding to take a path heading downhill in the right direction anyway.

It curved around to the left before depositing us onto a roadway – which I was hoping was Langley Lane. Nearby signs (once again confirming our position on the Chiltern Way Extension) confirmed this and, relieved, we headed, again on level ground, toward a conifer plantation, and through a copse called Hitch Spring onto the B651 again. Here we met Mutt and Jeff ­– but they were very puzzled how we could have overtaken them and I had no explanation. Tosh had been agitating for some time over the question of our noontime pub and these fellows said we could just take the highway south –but it wasn’t much longer to follow the official route to St. Paul’s Walden. Before beginning this final stretch I noted that here the guidebook actually makes a mistake – calling for a right-hand turn to reach the impressive lodge gate of Stagenhoe Park whereas the directional signs and the guidebook map itself mandated a left turn.

After the lodge gates we walked through fields and behind and between houses to reach a roadway above the town church. Here we did leave the route briefly to return to the B651 – soon spotting the Starthmore Arms, our lunch spot at last. It was 12:40 and we had covered four miles.

I had looked up this pub on its website – which made it seem much more trendy and modern than its actual somewhat disheveled interiors provided. Nevertheless it proved to be a most welcoming downhome place and we were soon settled against the front window – where I drank my pint of lager and we had our lunch… I had scampi and chips and Tosh a bacon and avocado sandwich. Mutt (who had huge ears) and Jeff arrived as well – although this time our overtaking them had more to do with their stopover in the St. Paul’s Walden churchyard. They reported spotting a monument here to the late Queen Mother. The Bowes-Lyon family hailed from this area and, so they told me, the Queen Mum had been a visitor to our pub in times long past.

We got ready to leave with final visits to the loos. On my way to the gents I passed an anteroom that had a bulletin board dedicated to the death of the month – with last month’s entry, Whitney Huston, still occupying pride of place.

We left at 1:30 – with five miles still to go – but we didn’t get very far, stopping to have a peek into the churchyard ourselves. Our route then continued directly opposite the church, a southerly track through parkland (with views of a little lake below us) as far as the Garden House. Here we took to tarmac to head over a hill as the road turned to the right – revealing views of the home of the Bowes-Lyons family, St Paul’s Waldenbury. Daffodils again guarded all the fences.

We left the road behind us, passed through a kissing gate and two other gates as we obtained dramatic views of the village of Whitwell below us. A steep descent brought us to a crossing of the little River Mimram and out to an establishment specializing in the restoration of furniture. The restorer was at work in the sunshine and he offered us a hearty greeting. We got no further that the high street of Whitwell (pronounced, evidently, “Whi’ll”) before Tosh decided to find out if the furniture restorer made house calls in London and so she returned to have a five minute chat while I changed instruction pages, took off my sweatshirt (which I inserted in a brand new daypack) and took a seat on a mossy wall across the street.

Our turnoff was only a few feet away and we were soon climbing steeply to a field and turning right along a hedge. The path now lead us out to a car park where we turned left to follow a macadam path along the edge of a recreation ground. This twisted right and then left to put us out on a village street called Hill View. A few steps away was our old friend the B651 and here we turned left, following its verge as far as the town water tower. Here we turned our back on motorcars for a long stretch on a rural track called Long Lane – which headed west and then southwest.

Tosh got well ahead of me for I was struggling with fatigue just a bit. Fortunately the walking surface was kind enough and the route mostly level here – and there continued to be charming views of the wooded hillside, with trees in blossom. (About the only discordant note in the idyll came from those EasyJet planes descending for their landings at Luton Airport.) I had lost sight of my walking companion when I heard the unmistakable sound of a panting dog coming up behind me. This was a young black Lab, whose name, we soon learned when his mistress also appeared, was Merlin. He came by for a cuddle as (reunited with Tosh again) we sat down in the grass for a bit of a rest.

On the resumption of our Long Lane trek we soon began a descent to a valley bottom – where cars were whizzing by on Whitewaybottom Lane. This we crossed to begin another stretch of uphill in the warm sun, accompanied by a hedge on our right. When we reached our turnoff, at a hedgerow ascending to our left, I called for another halt so I could try to figure out which side of this foliage we should be walking on. (These two rests on the grass were enough to produce on my forearms and the palms of my hands a kind of nettle rash that persisted throughout the next day as well.)

I snuck behind the hedge for a pee and we climbed our next hill a southerly direction. Here we had major route finding problems since I couldn’t spot appropriate signs indicating when we were to swing to the right. (I blame a burgeoning field of oilseed rape). In the event I think we continued too far in the direction of some woodland above us; here we did turn right and here, after limboing painfully under a gate rail, we did find the narrow road we were looking for – but I was sure we should have encountered this in a more northerly position than we now occupied.

Fortunately a Chiltern Way sign was just a few feet away and so (having somehow saved 300 yards of road walking) we were soon on our way into fields – from which some of the buildings of Peter’s Green could now be seen on the ridge top opposite. Unfortunately we now had to descend to another valley bottom. With a copse called Bilmore Dell on our left (not the Biltmore Deli) we dropped down to reach another hedge. Here the instructions we clear – the rising path we needed was on the nearside and so we plodded up, then heading west into the sun on our last climb of the day.

Tosh, who was very good about waiting at ambiguous turnoffs today, was waiting for me at the top – where our route brought us behind a series of houses and kids at play in their backyard and into an alleyway. At the end we could see a road and, more importantly, the Bright Star pub shining whitely in the afternoon sunshine. It was 4:30. We had now completed the northern extension of the Chiltern Way.

Of course we had been in Peter’s Green before – at the end of a stage on the original route – and the lady publican remembered us (well it had been only last August). Then she had called us a cab that never came and we had been dropped off at Luton Parkway station by some of the other pub customers. Now we had half an hour before our Stevenage cab was due to arrive so, disdaining the bright, sunny and warm benches out front, we went inside; I had a Diet Coke and Tosh had something with Angostura bitters. She also bought us some peanuts and I had just about finished mine, when, fifteen minutes early, our cab pulled up. So, leaving our drinks half tasted, we stepped past another lady who was planting red, white and blue flowers out front (in honor of the Olympics and the Queen’s Jubilee) and got in our cab.

The journey back was more protracted that its morning predecessor (and it cost a record £27.00) but this just gave our driver another half an hour to talk nonstop about more local history and the affairs of his kids. We passed several well-remembered sites – including Whitwell and the Rusty Gun.

At Stevenage station we had time to use the loos before boarding a 5:36 Kings Cross train (it stopped in Finsbury Park only). At King’s Cross the escalator to the underground was broken so we had to walk out in front of the station before finding our way to the Metropolitan Line. On the way one Asian lady returned to me a pound coin I had dropped and later another offered me a seat.

Here I should mention that Tosh was coming home with me today. A Mad Men addict, she was coming with me so that we could view the first two episodes of the series – over an impromptu takeaway. As we emerged from the Maida Vale tube stop, shortly after 6:30, I noticed that there was a woman, standing at the opposite corner with two Schnauzers. As we made our way over a second zebra crossing I noted that one of these animals was my own – Linda, having estimated our time of arrival, had just taken a chance on greeting us at this corner – after a day as Fritz’s custodian. He and her Pepper remained on lead as we now returned to Morshead Road; while I had been tromping through his native Hertfordshire my dog had enjoyed an outing on Hampstead Heath and he was about to have the additional treat of several portions of Dominos Pizza crust as we settled in with the ad men. It would have been a perfect day had the bathroom fan in the downstairs flat (not having been heard from for some time now) not ground into action at 1:00 in the morning.

To continue with our next stage you need:

Day 19: Peter’s Green to Flamstead