Length: 21.5 km (13.4 mi)
Ascent/Descent:
300mNet Walking Time: 5 hours
Toughness: 5 out of 10
Take the 09.48 Letchworth Garden City train from Moorgate (Old Street 09.50, Essex Road 09.53, Hi & Is 09.56, Finsbury Pk. 10.01 etc.), arrives Watton-at-Stone 10.44.
[The rtn ticket is only £13,80 at full cost, so there is little
point waiting for a post 10.00 departure for the Network RC users.]
Return
trains:
16.35, 17.06, 17.36, 17.58, 18.28, 18.58…
This
walk is in the gentle rolling hills and little wooded areas of rural
Hertfordshire, with a particularly attractive stretch alongside the River Beane
near the end and a brutalist water tower at Tonwell along the way and a cozy
pub with a big open fire at the end.
Lunch: The Boot Inn in Dane End, Ware (8.0 km/5.0 mi,
under new mgmt as of last year apparently) or at The Robin Hood Inn in
Tonwell (14.8 km/9.2 mi, food to 14.00 apparently).
Tea: The Bull or The George & Dragon,
both on the High Street in Watton.
For
walk directions, map, height profile, some photos and gpx/kml
files click here.t=swc.94
Next Week: Stonegate to Battle (amalgamated walk)
Next Week: Stonegate to Battle (amalgamated walk)
1 comment:
n=7 walkers in w=mostly-dry-weather, with a handful of short drizzle periods and one long hard shower. Nicely undulating landscape, lots of fields of course, this being Hertfordshire, but mostly navigated along grassy paths between them or along grassy boundaries. The field crossings that there were, were quite bearable, along well-trampled paths. A surprising amount of far views on this walk, as it's got quite a few hills and hummocks to cross.
Pre-lunch the drizzle never really got going until we reached the first pub The Boot Inn in Dane End. Slack research by the walk poster meant though that we were surprised to find it shut at weekday lunch times (it's under new mgmt, and looks prim and proper, so should be a good stop on a weekend). We called the second pub, more than hour down the route, and got a non-committal response to the question whether they'd still be open when we'd get there. So the golf club 20 minutes further along came as a huge reprieve as they were happy to accomodate us in their restaurant.
That's when the rain got heavy so we stayed for an hour and a half.
The afternoon then was dry and the landscape more varied, with the stretch along The Beane and the parkland around Woodhall Park the highlights.
3 for the train, 4 for The Bull in Watton. Those 4 took the 18.58, shamefully having gotten distracted by some NZ Sauvignon Blanc supplies...
Very pleasant, possibly one of the most underrated walks on the website.
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