Not quite a country walk!

One nice thing about England are the many ‘public footpath’ signs, leading through farmlands, moors, alongside rivers and through woodlands. Not only that, one can download a map of a specific walk – which is what we did yesterday.  Box Moor is an area around Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and run by the Box Moor Trust. They offer maps of four walks of varying difficulty and averaging between one and six kilometres. Not being avid walkers and having never followed a walking map before, we went for the fairly easy “Blue Walk – The Valley Floor" – This is an easy walk through traditionally grazed meadows says the description, 4km (2.5miles) approximately 2 hours.

We’d never been to Hemel Hempstead so set the Tom-Tom to St John’s Church and were out of London in 45 minutes.  The temperature was about 8C, it was dry and we looked forward to our walk with the map safely ensconced in a plastic sleeve (in case it did rain!).

Through the first few ‘kissing gates’ and ‘meadows’ and the A41 busy motorway competed noisily with the London Midland and the Southern railway.  It didn’t take long for us to realise that this was a circular walk around the A41 and it wasn’t what we would call quiet ‘countryside’! But it was a walk in an area we’d never been to before, and there was the promise of walking along the towpath of a canal!

There were about nine ‘kissing gates’ through the ‘meadows’, which according to Wikipedia, are gates which “…merely kiss (touch) the enclosure either side, rather than needing to be securely latched.” Not what you thought eh?!  Basically for the non-UK readers, it’s a gate designed to allow pedestrians through, not sheep or livestock, and usually only one person at a time, allowing the gate to close before the next one can enter. However, there is an urban legend that when the gate has closed on the first person and the second is waiting to go through, a ‘toll’ kiss is to be paid over the gate! “Indeed in some circles it is considered good form for everyone passing through a kissing gate to exchange kisses in this way (provided all parties are sufficiently friendly with each other.)” (Wikipedia again).  Oops! We missed that rule!

The ‘meadows’ – as they are described on the map – are simply fields of grass just off the road, Ok, so there were some sheep in one of the meadows we didn’t get to, but bounded by the A41 and railway line, and the main road through the town, I just couldn’t call them ‘meadows’!!

Robert Snooks Grave

The map was very helpful, very accurate and described everything as it really was, including “Snooks Grave” in the middle of one of the meadows! Robert Snooks – his real name was James Blackman Snooks, and the Robert probably came from ‘Robber Snooks’ – was the last man to be executed in England for highway robbery on 11^th March 1802. One of the versions of the story say that he stole £80 from the post boy, but left a broken saddle at the scene of the crime helping to identify him! The white triangular stone and a small block of stone mark the spot where he was hanged and buried. He was 42 years old.

About halfway on the walk there’s a pub – there’s always a pub nearby! The Three Horseshoes pub is in the village of Winkwell and alongside the Grand Union Canal. It dates back in parts to 1535 when the land was part of a ‘monastic establishment’. After the dissolution of the monastery by Henry VIII in 1539, the land and buildings ended up on “Crown Land”! Passing to Edward VI, Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, it’s had some regal owners, but Robert Dudley “rather ungratefully” (according to the pubs history on its website) sold the land to get him the cash to buy more lavish gifts for his queen, in the hopes of winning her heart – and hand! And eventually it all came down to the Boxmoor Trust.

Having spent a half hour or more at lunch – with a good 10 minutes of that spent brushing the mud off our boots on the custom made shoe-brusher outside (two yard-brush heads facing inwards and mounted on an adjustable iron frame) – we enjoyed the walk back alongside the canal, admiring the boats (one with a pirate flag, one called ‘My Overdraught’) and the locks.  No fish were sighted although there were supposed to be brown trout in either the canal or the stream alongside or the reservoir lake on the other side of the hedge! But there were the usual ducks of various colours and brands!

The houses on the banks of the canal reminded us of the Howick houses on the banks of the Umgeni – bungalows (single storeys, unusual for England!) with sloping gardens down to the river’s edge, and steps on which to sit with toes in the water or a crude stick, line and worm – on a summer’s day of course!

A very pleasant - if somewhat noisy with traffic and trains although no planes! - walk on a good English winter's day! Especially considering the next day was rainy and cold!

(Pics downloaded from internet - I didn't take any on this trip!)