Starting the walk with an easy first day, or so I thought! The plan is to establish a round trip route from Tring to Ivinghoe Beacon. There are three possible routes: the Ridgeway itself; through the Ashridge estate; or along the Grand Union canal. As I know the route through Ashridge very well I decided to go out on the canal, then find a route up to the Beacon and come back on the Ridgeway: I’ve only done parts of this before. I also had in mind working up a route for an Islington u3a longer walk.
The canal proved easy but longer and was rather charming. The first section is through a deep cutting. It then emerges at the top of a long flight of locks down to Aylesbury Vale, by a series of reservoirs built to feed the canal from its highest point over the Chilterns. The reservoirs were interesting: this is a SSSI and a rare habitat for water fowl. It didn’t diappoint – there were loads of them. You can then come round the back of Pitstone village to Ivinghoe for lunch. I turned out to be the first patron at the pub: they seemd a bit surprised but very friendly.
Then I struck out east from the village down a long track and a rather obscure route to the foot of the Beacon. I followed a footpath on the map but when I got there it was incredibly steep! Although I could see people in earshot this was a very dangerous thing to do on my own, up some very slippery chalk paths. This will not feature on any route I promote!
Then I struck out east from the village down a long track and a rather obscure route to the foot of the Beacon. I followed a footpath on the map but when I got there it was incredibly steep! Although I could see people in earshot this was a very dangerous thing to do on my own, up some very slippery chalk paths. This will not feature on any route I promote!
Glad to reach the top, though. A couple of young lads were up there having traveled up on motorised bikes. I said I should have used one of those. When I told them how I’d got there they thought I was nuts! Anyway the view up there is as stunning as ever. I realised looking north to Whipsnade and beyond that the route hardly starts here. In fact it probably continued to Norfolk and maybe links to routes to the north of England.
View north from Ivinghoe Beacon towards Whipsnade and beyond. The old stone road continues as the Icknield Way long distance path to Thetford
The Ridgeway route back to Tring station is straightforward and well marked and at Pitstone Hill there are clear signs of Grim’s Ditch. I should draw some profiles of what I see as I progress.
So Ashridge-Ridgeway is the route to write up, about 8.5 miles/13.5 km. And as for the u3a walk, I’ll probably do Ashridge-village for lunch-back on the canal, which would be a new route for the group. [I did this later, a 13 mile/21 km circuit: route here.]
