{"id":2489,"date":"2014-04-27T12:12:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T12:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2016-11-14T10:45:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T10:45:18","slug":"on-the-icknield-way-baldock-to-royston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2014\/04\/on-the-icknield-way-baldock-to-royston\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Icknield Way – Baldock to Royston"},"content":{"rendered":"

I walked this stage of the Icknield Way Path expedition<\/a> on Easter Monday 2014.<\/p>\n

I hopped on the train at Ely, changed at Cambridge where I had a rather tasty bacon roll and a cuppa tea.\u00a0 Then jumped on the train south.<\/p>\n

I arrived in Baldock on a cool, misty morning.\u00a0 The sign below greeted me outside the train station, a street name though, leading to a dead end, not where I wanted to go!<\/p>\n

\"Not
Not the Icknield Way<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

15 minutes later I had left Baldock and was on the Way itself.<\/p>\n

\"On
On the Icknield Way<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I headed off in a north-easterly direction.<\/p>\n

\"Icknield
Icknield Way marker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a joy to be out amongst these gently rolling hills.<\/p>\n

\"On
Green fields…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mist began to rise and the sun gave a hint of its arrival.<\/p>\n

I passed fields of oil-seed rape, the blossoms give off a heavy, almost narcotic, odor that permeates the countryside.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow<\/figure>\n

I liked this old barn and haystack, like something out of a Just William<\/a> story.<\/p>\n

\"Old
Old barn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though on the other side of the barn I found this warning, so maybe not such a good place for a cheeky wild camp.<\/p>\n

\"Sign
Rat poison!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I reached the village of Wallington.<\/p>\n

\"Wallington
St Mary’s church, Wallington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found a bench in the churchyard and stopped for a snack and some water.<\/p>\n

It was here I realised I hadn’t packed my copy of ‘The Icknield Way Path – A Walkers\u2019 Guide<\/span>‘<\/a> and thus left Wallington\u00a0 unaware that George Orwell had lived in the village from 1936 to 1940<\/a>.\u00a0 Damn, it would have been great to have taken a photo of his cottage.<\/p>\n

\"Wallington
Wallington churchyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I left Wallington and took a pretty lane back up to the chalk ridge.<\/p>\n

\"Green
Onwards!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next village on the path was Sandon.<\/p>\n

\"Sandon\"
Sandon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I sat by the duck pond for a while and basked in the gathering midday heat.<\/p>\n

\"A
A duck on Sandon pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back on the trail.\u00a0 I entered some woodland.<\/p>\n

\"Notley
Notley Lane signpost<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took a break in Hawkins Wood<\/a> which is managed by the Woodland Trust.<\/p>\n

\"Selfie
Selfie in Hawkins Wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leaving the wood I found a good spot for my lunch.<\/p>\n

\"Lunch
Lunch break<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I brewed up a cup of tea and enjoyed a Cornish pasty.<\/p>\n

\"Lunch
Cornish pasty and tea on the Icknield Way<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After lunch I set off without checking my maps.\u00a0 I was supremely confident of heading in the right direction but after a while the discrepancy between the map and territory was too great to be ignored.\u00a0 I pulled out my compass and found I was heading south instead of north-east!\u00a0 How on earth did that happen?<\/p>\n

I took a bearing and headed off again in the direction of the path, which once found, led me to the village of Therfield where I enjoyed an excellent pint of Mad Goose Pale Ale<\/a> at the Fox & Duck pub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A
A pint at the Fox & Duck, Therfield<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I left Therfield feeling a little sleepy after the pint.\u00a0 It was tempting to find a nice grassy spot for a nap but I didn’t really have time for that.<\/p>\n

\"On
On the way to Royston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I followed a track up and along the ridge of the hills for a few miles until the town of Royston appeared before me.<\/p>\n

\"Royston
Royston from Therfield Heath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was my end point, I made my way into town and caught the train back home.<\/p>\n

All-in-all a particularly lovely walk through classic rolling English countryside.\u00a0 I’m really looking forward to the next stage of this hike.<\/p>\n


\nHere’s a little video I shot
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/lwusDIqzoJs<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walked this stage of the Icknield Way Path expedition on Easter Monday 2014. I hopped on the train at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,109],"tags":[75,32,142,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5937,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions\/5937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}