This was a bit of an unplanned day, but a combination of an early finish to my meeting and a lot more sunshine than predicted meant that we decided to set off. The car park by the war memorial was almost full with dog and child walkers but we found a space and headed down the path we had come up on Sunday. Driving there we had agreed that this was yet another strange leg, with a downhill stretch into Berkhamsted, a long straight section along a canal and then another long straight section uphill at right angles to the canal to get to Bovingdon. It didn't seem particularly inspiring.
Downhill through the woods was easy, and the sound of a train showed that we were getting close to the West Coast Main Line. The path headed down an open valley towards what is known as Kitchener's Field on the edge of Berkhamsted, which is where the troops were based when building the trenches we had seen on the previous leg. A large bird on an overhead wire next to the hedge caught my eye and turned out to be a kestrel. A flock of meadow pipits then decided to land on the wires next to the kestrel, and two yellowhammers high up in the adjacent tree glinted bright yellow in the sunshine. As an added bonus a stonechat turned up and sat just a few metres away in the hedge. That was a pretty good collection of birds for standing in one place for about two minutes.
Pressing on we were soon at Berkhamsted castle. This was originally an 11th Century motte-and-bailey (which is a phrase I probably haven't used since O-Level history ended in 1979), and now consists of a few stone remnants spread over a small hill surrounded by a mainly dry ditch which could just about be imagined as a moat. We crossed under the West Coast Main Line and were almost straight away on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal running from London to Birmingham. Time for an immediate stop so that Helen could remove a layer of clothing and I could start taking photos of the scenery in the bright sunshine, starting with a bridge with a sign celebrating the Canal Duke, and a full-size Canadian totem pole.
The section along the canal through Berkhamsted provided a scenic succession of pubs, canal boats, locks, bridges and cottages. There were views of ornate spires in Berkhamsted School and church towers in the main town further up the hill. A large hippo stood amongst the potted plants outside one cottage but turned out to be a fountain. Coots and moorhens dived for cover in the vegetation as we reached them, and then we found the second kestrel of the day, this time sitting low in a small tree on the opposite bank. We will be seeing quite a lot of the canal in the next two legs, and hopefully it will live up to this early taste.
The River Bulbourne turned up now and again running in woodland and meadows just south of the canal, with the railway running on the north side. At the next lock we discovered a worker in a hi-vis jacket blocking the path and the sound of a chainsaw coming from the trees just off to the right. We waited patiently and a large tree eventually fell completely blocking the towpath. This was probably not exactly where they had been expecting it to fall, but after the two workers had applied a chainsaw to some of the bigger branches we managed to scramble through and leave them to sorting out the mess. They had obviously been quite busy since the next few hundred yards of towpath were littered with small and not so small branches that they had cut back.
I spotted a heron at the far end of a small lake but it was too far away to get a good photo as every heron has been so far. But then a bright white shape appeared just a few metres away through the trees on a rotten wooden fence alongside the river. It was a little egret which walked slowly along the fence showing off its bright yellow feet. It had three rings on its legs, with an orange "L" on the left leg and a black "9" and plain metal ring on the right. When we got home I submitted the details to the Southern Colour Ringing Group website and we now know that this was little egret GY02522. It was ringed as a nestling in May this year at Netherhall in Essex which is in the Lea Valley just east of Hoddesdon. We will pass quite close to there later on our trip around Hertfordshire.
We were now getting towards the end of the canal section. A first red kite of the day flew over, a large flock of Canada geese paddled slowly along and we reached the road bridge where we needed to turn off. All that had been missing was a flash of blue as a kingfisher sped past, so we had to settle for the picture of one on the sign outside Kingfisher House just after we had crossed the River Bulbourne for the first time. A short section of main road was made more entertaining by the speed sign that was suffering a flat battery despite the solar panel on top. It had enough power left to cycle through various error messages but had clearly given up on displaying anything sensible unless "Low bat" was an attempt to report a wildlife sighting.
There had been so much to look at so far that we had only managed six kilometres in the first hour, despite the fact that it had all been downhill. The rest of the way to Bovingdon was going to be all uphill. There was a steady climb up to the bridge over the A41 and then on through another large and empty golf course. We were soon getting extensive views across the Bulbourne Valley from Berkhamsted to the west all the way around to Hemel Hempstead to the east. I was hoping we might even be able to see the Bridgewater Monument again but it was just too far away and the ridge was too low, so we settled with trying to work out what the large copper-topped tower with a hole in it and the white tower that looked like a Bavarian castle were that we could see towards Berkhamsted.
The golf course eventually ended and we set off down a driveway lined with very large houses. These ended to be replaced with fields, woodland and some very nice farms along the correctly named Stoney Lane which then led us to St Lawrence Church, Bovingdon. St Lawrence seems to be surprisingly popular in Hertfordshire and this was at least his fourth church we had passed so far since setting out from Royston. This particular one ticked all the standard boxes with a neat and tidy churchyard (which may or may not be the second largest in Hertfordshire but certainly looked big), trimmed yew trees, gravestones of various ages, and a church building with flint, flint and more flint. For variety the builders had thrown in a few lumps of puddingstone as well. We had a short stop on the bench by the west door during which time it started to rain. This became heavy enough for us to decide to put on coats before setting off on the way back to the car.
There was a bit of a debate about what route to take back, but in the end the novelty of running along the runway of the old airfield determined that we would do a loop to the west. The main road through the village had an assortment of interesting old buildings as well as a well in the middle of the road. A short stretch along the edge of a housing estate, turn right through a gap in the hedge and we were confronted with the enormous fence around HMP The Mount, complete with several layers of razor wire at the top and a wide grassy strip all around the outside. At this point a rainbow appeared over the prison making it seem rather more attractive than it might otherwise have been. Luckily, that was the end of the rain, as we were both finding it a bit hot running with a coat on.
The prison sits in a corner of the former RAF Bovingdon. First we came to an area which was now set up as a racetrack with tyre walls. Then there was a very large new warehouse, fenced off nearly as well as the prison, which is where "Dancing on Ice" is filmed. The airfield has also been used for several films including war films such as "633 Squadron" and "Battle of Britain", the Roger Moore Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun" and more recently "Bohemian Rhapsody" when it was used to recreate Live Aid.
We crossed what used to be the main runway 02/20 and set off along what remained of runway 09/27. To the right a red kite bounced around in the strong wind as it flew lower and lower with the sun highlighting its red body. To the left a flock of sheep grazed around a giant circular structure looking like some sort of spaceship skeleton. This is the Bovingdon VOR (Very high frequency omni-directional range) navigational beacon BNN which is used as part of the stack for planes approaching Heathrow, not that there was any evidence of any planes today.
The old runway ended and turned into a muddy path through fields of horses. Coming out onto the road I noticed the footpath signs had changed colour. We had just entered Buckinghamshire, where we stayed for about a kilometre. Buckinghamshire seemed to have even more red kites than Hertfordshire and were treated to a non-stop display from them flying backwards and forwards low across the road. A short muddy stretch along the border and we had crossed back into Hertfordshire. The path led down through woodland across a valley and back up to the A41. After another debate about which path to take we decided on going through the middle of Berkhamsted. The underpass for the A41 was quite low, but came complete with working lighting and a helpful mounting block so that you could get on and off of your horse should you have one with you. Many bigger and better-used underpasses come less well equipped and maintained.
We ran down through the Berkhamsted School playing fields and resolved our two earlier questions. The white tower above the trees was a water tower near the J. Paul Getty, Jr. Conservation Centre of the British Film Institute National Archives, and the copper-topped tower with a hole in was the main building of Ashlyns School. All the way down the hill we passed streams of schoolchildren moving backwards and forwards between a succession of different schools. Everywhere you looked there were dark blue signs with the date 1541 indicating quite how much of the town that the Boys' School owns.
We crossed straight over the High Street, avoiding the temptation to take in St Peter's Church just off to the right, and arrived back at the totem pole by the canal. For variety we took a different tunnel under the railway next to the station, but that brought us back out by the castle and we just had to retrace our steps back up the hill to the car. Optimistically I took out the binoculars as we started running up the hedge that had been full of bird life in the sunshine three hours earlier. This time it revealed nothing at all. We got back to the car just as the rain started again, and a red kite flew backwards and forwards over the car park to mark the end of probably my favourite day so far.
