Marston Vale Timberland Trail

We'd encountered the Marston Vale Timberland Trail before, on shared sections with the Greensand Ridge Walk and the John Bunyan Trail, but still our eyes had not been opened. It was not until we DID walk around Stewartby Lake on a bitterly cold day in March 2018 when it was too cold to do a longer walk (yes that's snow on the ground in the photo - top right - and sailing!) that we realised that the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park, with its visitor centre ("The Forest Centre") close to Stewartby Lake, is actually quite an attractive place. On that occasion we parked at and popped into the Forest Centre and saw the route of the Marston Vale Timberland Trail, and immediately added it to our "to do" list.

Whilst the route is advertised as starting from the Country Park, which is on the site of former brickworks for which Marston Vale was famous, and the route passes close to the four remaining brickworking chimneys in the village of Stewartby, it then climbs up onto the Greensand Ridge, passing Houghton House (a ruined house that is reputed to have been the inspiration for "House Beautiful" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress). Also on the Greensand Ridge, the route passes though undulating wooded countryside close to the Millbrook Proving Ground and, depending on which version of the route you take, either around or through the delightful King's Wood.

The route is reasonably well signposted, with signs bearing the logo of the Timberland company. and there is an attractive map as well as a description of the route here. However, as usual, our route-finding relied heavily on Ordnance Survey maps, and despite the fact that the trail follows a relatively short circular route, it still manages to cross three Ordnance Survey Explorer Sheets: 192 (Buckingham and Milton Keynes), 193 (Luton and Stevenage) and 208 (Bedford and St Neots).