Today should have been the Hertfordshire Orienteering Club Saturday Series event at Stanborough Park but the second lockdown ended that. This had allowed us to pick the better weather forecast and set out on Saturday rather than Sunday. The short trip to Verulamium was made only slightly longer by having to go via a friend's house to deliver some rhubarb crowns that Helen had dug up from the allotment, but we still ended up parking at St Michael's just before 9.00. The church clock striking nine is the signal to start the parkrun here, and three or four people did just that, rather than the three or four hundred that turn up in normal times. We set off in the opposite direction with slightly more than five kilometres ahead of us.
The permissive road through Gorhambury Estate had finally decided it needed to shut in honour of lockdown so the first two kilometres had to be along the Redbourn Road rather than along what used to be Watling Street. Almost the first thing we saw was a heron in the fields by the Prae Wood Arms. We soon reached the gate into Gorhambury that we should have been coming out of, complete with a notice explaining why it was closed, and then we could turn right off the main road and start the section along the River Ver itself.
Through the old mill and the neat farmyard and it was time for a photo stop to capture the reflections in the pond. The path ran through scrubby bushes parallel to the River Ver over to the left and we were making steady progress when suddenly there was an extremely loud call from an unseen bird in the tree just above us. We both stopped and scanned the bushes trying to find it, but we never managed to see it. It had flown a little further away but continued to sing its definitive song, and there was no doubt this was a Cetti's warbler. This is a bird that I had never seen or even heard before but knew was a possibility along this stretch as it features frequently in the Herts Bird Club reports. Its call is an unmistakable "chetty chetty chetty". Latin name Cettia cetti, family Cettidae. It seems somewhat fortuitous that 18th century Italian zoologist Francesco Cetti was available to name it after. Don't expect a photo, but apparently it is another of those little brown non-descript ones.
The path continued on and crossed the Ver on a footbridge by a farmyard. We stopped to watch two large farm vehicles ploughing through the quite deep water in the ford next to the bridge. We were now at Redbournbury Mill which seemed hopeful of some passing trade since there were stalls open with people selling bread. The inevitable red kite flew over and soon we had reached Redbourn. We followed the Nickey Line around the edge of the village. This is the former Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead Railway, which was closed in 1979 and is now a footpath and cycleway. This is part of National Cycle Route 57 running from Welwyn Garden City all the way to Gloucestershire. We'd already crossed it as we entered Wheathampstead on Leg 6 where for some reason it is known as the Ayot Greenway instead.
After a short section along the Nickey Line passing a steady stream of runners, walkers and cyclists the signs led us down a narrow path between houses and into the Church of St Mary. I managed the normal selection of photographs but struggled to get what I felt would have been an interesting alignment of the weather-vane and the moon. Unfortunately, someone had planted an avenue of trees without thinking of future photographic opportunities and there was a tree right where I needed to stand to get things lined up properly. This was the point where we had to decide whether to turn back towards St Albans or press on to Flamstead. By this stage we had only been going just over an hour, and with good weather it seemed sensible to keep going and accept a slightly longer day than usual. This decision would have the advantage of making the next two legs very efficient, and the disadvantage of making Helen a little tired later in the day.
The path out of the churchyard followed the edge of Redbourn through fields and then we climbed up to a bridge across the M1 and into the large complex of buildings at Flamsteadbury Farm. This included a field full of solar panels and a wind turbine, along with a slightly more unexpected indoor cricket centre. Beyond the farm the track entered a huge field. We could see all the way to the far side, well over a kilometre away, with several groups of walkers coming towards us. Skylarks sang loudly on both sides of the track as we progressed.
A brief section through a wood revealed an enormous badger sett and then we came out to views of the deep valley at Trowley Bottom with Flamstead at the top of the hill the other side. It was only a 30 metre drop to the bottom and climb the other side but it still felt like one of the biggest hills we had come across since leaving Royston. Getting towards the top of the far side of the valley we passed a crocheted village sign announcing we had reached Flamstead and then came to St Leonard's Church at the top of hill. We did a quick lap of the village to admire the selection of old buildings and then entered the churchyard to reach the end of the Hertfordshire Way for today.
The route back was to be along the Chiltern Way, or at least it would be after a short detour down a dead-end road. On the edge of the village we suddenly found ourselves in an enormous field covered in mud and piles of pumpkins. This turned out to have been a pop-up pumpkin farm: there's a concept I wasn't familiar with. Obviously not quite enough people had pre-booked their tickets as required for their chance to visit and collect a pumpkin before Halloween, and the remaining pumpkins littered the field in bright orange piles. Two more red kites flew over.
Despite a hopeful sign at the farm exit indicating that the Chiltern Way went straight on the reality was that Junction 9 of the M1 had really made no attempt to let pedestrians cross at this point. We dashed across slip roads, jumped over Armco barriers to try to avoid being in the road, and waded through vegetation including extensive teasel forests until we finally reached the far side of the motorway. We were welcomed by a burnt-out car in a lay-by that the police were apparently aware of (unless the notice was already attached to the car when it was stolen), signs for the Hertfordshire Showground which lay just ahead on the right, and a badly overgrown path into the field where we should be about to find the River Ver again. They had obviously run out of signs by this point, and we had to guess that the electric fence keeping the cows by the river was probably what we needed to follow to the house in the distance.
Two buzzards soared high above us in slow circles as they gradually moved north up the valley. As they disappeared I spotted a dark shape at the top of an isolated bush in the marshy area near the river. This turned out to be a stonechat. I'd seen plenty before in Wales and Scotland, but this was the first one I had seen in Hertfordshire. Helen stopped for a chat with a passing walker who had set out from Harpenden that morning and just decided to keep going. The stonechat flew from bush to bush up and down the valley, never getting quite close enough for a good photo.
We crossed the Ver again, which at this point is little more than a trickle in rough grassland, and found a sign pointing through the driveway of the house we had been heading for. This came as a surprise to the two builders who appeared to be laying out foundations of a building that would lie right across the way we were heading. At least there was a gate in the far fence so we aimed for that and found ourselves skirting round yet more electric fences. This was a pleasant enough walk but gave no hint of the 15 minutes of TV fame that this patch of rough grassland achieved when two Romano-British temples known as Friars Wash were the site of a Time Team investigation in 2009. But before you could say Tony Robinson we had passed the site and found a spot by the side of the river for a quick snack break.
Redbourn Golf Course was clearly closed, and seven pheasants were taking the opportunity for a gentle stroll across the empty fairway. The riding school just past the golf course was most definitely open, with spectators watching a small child going round in circles as the horse stepped carefully over the low jumps. Other children were being encouraged to get back on their bicycle and ride down the muddy track rather than stand screaming in terror at the top. The path crossed the Nickey Line again and we had now reached the fields of Rothamsted Research. The people of Harpenden were out in force and it felt almost like a sponsored walk with people all over the place on all of the paths through the fields. We turned right just before getting to the mapped area at Rothamsted and passed neatly tended fields running the world's oldest agricultural trials. There was also evidence of rather newer trials with a field containing an enormous gantry with no obvious agricultural connection other than the sponsorship logo for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Most of the walkers appeared to have parked along the edge of the road we had now reached, but we turned right to avoid them and started passing a series of very large houses with expensive cars parked on the drive. Crossing the Harpenden Road we entered the golf course on Harpenden Common. Again this was empty of golfers but busy with walkers. We crossed the cricket pitch which is cunningly positioned in the middle of one of the fairways and left the golf course to enter fields looking out over the railway to Heartwood Forest beyond. By now we were both just keen for it to be finished, especially since we were now repeating bits from Leg 7. We found an alternative way through Childwickbury taking us through the fruit farm with extensive rows of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and currants.
The normally crowded football and rugby pitches at Batchwood were empty except for a handful of people kicking balls around. The whitest dog imaginable was scampering through the mud, much to the annoyance of its owner. We headed into the woods and took the orienteer's route straight towards the golf course. The golf course was again deserted, if you don't count the two people who had clearly not got the message, and then we were back on the Leg 7 route down into St Albans.
I suggested a slight detour (probably only 200 metres extra, a mere nothing when you have done 27 kilometres) so that we could take in Kingsbury Watermill which has a large block of Hertfordshire puddingstone standing outside it. And then we crossed the Ver for a fourth and final time and arrived back at Verulamium after a tiring but interesting day. It had been noticeable for the birdlife but also for the large numbers of people we had seen all the way around, drawn out the very pleasant warm and sunny November day, as well as the new attitude to getting outside that seems to have arisen in lockdown.
