Backup Only

This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Sunday 6 March 2016

Sunday Walk 1 – A short easy walk to a Cathedral city

Book 1 Walk 7 – Garston to St Albans
Length: 14.0 km (8.7 miles). Toughness: 1/10

10:54 Northampton train from Euston, changing at Watford Junction (arr 11:14, dep 11:20) and arriving Garston at 11:25. The most flexible ticket is a day return to St Albans stations, which allows you to return from either station.

From the main (City) station in St Albans there are fast trains to St Pancras at 29 & 59 minutes past, but note that these aren't continuing through London this Sunday because of engineering works. Trains back from the Abbey station are hourly at 28 minutes past and go to Watford Junction, where you change for Euston.

I remember this undemanding Book 1 walk as a pleasant winter outing through woods, meadows, parkland and river valleys, though admittedly when I did it many years ago it helped that the ground was frozen rather than waterlogged (so be prepared for some muddy stretches). The walk finishes in the interesting city of St Albans with its Roman walls and imposing Abbey, now a Cathedral. There's much to admire inside, not least a full-size replica of a 14thC astronomical clock.

The suggested lunch stop is the the Moor Mill Inn, a Beefeater pub-restaurant, after 6 km. As it's Mother's Day its restaurant may well be fully booked but you should be able to get served in the bar area. If this doesn't work out you might have to push on to St Albans, judging by the discouraging comments on the walk's Feedback page about the pubs in the next village, Park Street. There are of course plenty of refreshment places at the end of the walk, with the Cathedral Cafeteria being convenient if you're visiting.

You'll need to bring Book 1 or print the directions from the Walk 7 page.
T=1.07

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for posting this walk Sean

PeteB said...

Someone who went on this told me there was just n=3 doing the walk. The stretch through the valley which can be very muddy was "not too bad"