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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.

Saturday 2 November 2019

Saturday Walk - Cheddington to Leighton Buzzard

Length: 24.8 km (15.5 mi) [shorter walk possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: 254 m
Net Walking Time: ca. 5 ½ hours
Toughness: 5 out of 10

Take the 09.24 Rugeley Trent Valley train from Euston (Watford Junction 09.39), arriving Cheddington at 10.03. From Clapham Junction, take the 08.40 Milton Keynes Central train, change at Watford Junction (09.20/09.39).  
Return trains: xx.10, xx.34 and xx.54 (30-47 minutes journey time), on  xx.24 you can catch a train to Clapham Junction (68 minutes journey time). Buy a Leighton Buzzard return.

“A splendid walk through East Buckinghamshire’s rolling landscape of fields and wooded areas on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, linking up a handful of delightful hill top villages to provide panoramic views across pleasant countryside. Broadly following the Thames/Great Ouse watershed in the morning, it initially heads west, mostly with grand views of the Chilterns (when not walking in wooded areas), to then turn north with far views into Aylesbury Vale to the west, on to lunch pubs at either Aston Abbotts or Cublington. The afternoon route is more level, but still features the hilltop village of Wing and ends with a fairly tranquil descent into Linslade (for Leighton Buzzard station).“

It is possible to shorten the walk by taking a bus to Leighton Buzzard station, for details see the ‘Walk Options’ chapter on page 2 of the directions.

Disclaimer: This walk involves a level crossing of the Leighton Buzzard-bypass dual carriageway.

Lunch: The Unicorn in Cublington  (13.9 km/8.7 mi, food to 14.30), or (a little earlier and 250m off-route) the Royal Oak Inn in Aston Abbotts (11.5 km/7.1 mi).
Tea: several pubs listed in the directions, they are all in the Linslade part of town, i.e. close to the station. There is also a re-opened pub in Leighton Buzzard’s centre (The Black Lion at 20 High Street), a bit further away, which has been voted ‘CAMRA Pub of the Year Bedfordshire’ in its first year. Or The Bald Buzzard, a micropub at 6 Hockcliffe Street.

For walk directions, map, height profile, comments, and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.195

2 comments:

Mike said...

I arrived from the unwashed North a few mins after the scheduled train but there was nobody in sight at Cheddington, perhaps because of the rain or the rugby (I did consider wearing my South Africa woolly hat). The rain soon stopped and a curious golden orb briefly appeared in the sky, but the wind never relented. The Unicorn (1pm) was closed so this habitual early eater gutsed it out till 2pm and the Cock Inn at Wing. The rain returned with a vengeance. I had a few minor route problems owing to ploughed fields, but nothing serious. Lots of mud!

Anonymous said...

N=1 w=very-windy-and-sometimes-very-wet ??