Dunstable Downs to Sundon Hills Country Park
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 19th May 2019
9.9 miles of walking, virtually all on the route of the Chiltern Way
For photographs of this walk click here
Sometimes I think we must be crazy! At 8.45am I was in the car park at the Sundon Hills Country Park (TL047286) waiting for Richard to join me, having got up at 5am to get packed up for the week ahead, and left Norfolk before 7am. We had decided to walk today's leg (with a starting point around 21 miles from where we finished our walk from Stokenchurch to Redland End last Sunday) out of order, because we wanted more practice prior to our holiday on the Cumbria Way in a few weeks' time. But we wanted somewhere a little nearer to both Norfolk and Milton Keynes to save driving time, so this seemed perfect, and we knew there were good car parks at both ends. Trouble is, we'd reckoned without a day that dawned misty and turned positively foggy on the drive from Norfolk to Bedfordshire. By the time we got to the Sundon Hills, there wasn't much of a view...
Fortunately the weather improved as we drove to today's starting point at Dunstable Downs and by the time we'd parked in the car park at TL00819 things were looking up. We had improving views over the Vale of Aylesbury and along the ridge of the Chilterns. Even better, the car park was free for us, as National Trust members. The fog might have cleared, but our next challenge was finding the Chiltern Way! We easily found the Icknield Way Path (which we had walked in this section in November 2011, coincidentally on a misty day) and had good views to the gliding club below; incidentally, we'd wondered on looking at the map why the gliding club is at the bottom of the hill, but it appears that the gliders are towed off the ground by a powered aircraft, so presumably it doesn't really matter where they start.
But where was the Chiltern Way? According to the Ordnance Survey, it descends to the bottom of the slope, where we could see another path. But where did the path descend? Eventually we took a route that was a definite scramble, which was really quite challenging for me, who isn't terribly good at going steeply downhill, even with walking poles. We got to the bottom and our route was clear, even if there were still no Chiltern Way signs. We discovered much later than the guidebook describes the route as staying on top of the ridge; ah well, it was a good test of my new walking poles and good practice for the Cumbria Way.
We followed the bottom of the ridge and ascended gradually back to the road in Dunstable, where the Icknield Way Path and our Chiltern Way route re-converged. We crossed the road and followed a tarmacked path around the edge of Dunstable. There were houses behind the hedges, initially on both sides of us but then open country emerged to our left and it was pleasant enough. There were lots of dog-walkers about. We turned right and then left, and descended past a disused railway line (now a National Cycle Route) to the attractive hamlet of Sewell. When we were here in 2011, we'd had to print out this section of OS map because we didn't have the relevant sheet. Today we had printed it out but only because our now much used "Buckingham and Milton Keynes" sheet was in our flat...in Milton Keynes. It's amazing how much can happen in seven and a half years!
From Sewell we took a narrow path down to and around a pond with geese, then we climbed up to the A5, with a steep flight of steps up to the road itself. This is Chalk Hill, and after crossing the road we descended back down some steps and stopped to say "hello" to a friendly woman who was brushing the road outside her house. After taking a path alongside the houses we found ourselves halfway up a steep slope, looking down on a modern industrial estate. We stopped here for a break, and within the time it took to change my socks and eat an apple, two sets of dog-walkers stopped to talk. Neither had climbed up this slope before and, whilst the women were just puffing and panting a bit, the man had hurt his knee and wasn't sure where he was; we did our best to direct him back to Houghton Regis, but the problem was that he didn't seem to know where in Houghton Regis he wanted to be. The dog walkers all continued up the slope over the site of a disused pit, whilst we continued along the edge of the slope.
After passing a sewage works (I'm not selling this am I...) we encountered a board notifying us of footpaths closed ahead, with a diversion offered down the slope past a housing development under construction that stretched as far as the eye could see. Oh dear! Fortunately close inspection showed that whilst the Icknield Way Path was indeed closed ahead, this was only from the point where the Chiltern Way and the Icknield Way Path diverge, and the route of the Chiltern Way was not affected. We continued on through the delightful area known as Blue Waters Woodland and eventually emerged onto the B5120 (formerly the A5120) to the north of Houghton Regis.
We walked along the pavement for a short distance, then we too encountered a new housing development, this time it was almost complete and the path was signed around the edge. We nearly came unstuck when we saw a signpost directing us onto the old route, but it seemed very overgrown and we soon realised we were meant to continue straight ahead for a short distance and then to turn left. Just before reaching the B5120 again we turned right alongside a little stream. We soon realised that the houses weren't the only new thing round here; there was a new road to the north of us that is not on our paper OS map. A little research revealed this to be the Dunstable Northern Bypass and now the route of the A5, linking to a new junction 11a on the M1.
Our 2015 copyright Ordnance Survey map shows the route of the Chiltern Way turning left on a track past Grove Farm, but that route is blocked by the new road. The Chiltern Way has been diverted just slightly to the east, across a new bridge, and then loops back and still passes Grove Farm. We were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch and there was a bench right by the farm, but it really was right by the farm, indeed we decided that it is probably their property, so we didn't feel we could stop here. Fortunately there was a conveniently positioned log just after we'd turned onto a delightful path just to the north of the farm, so we stopped there instead..
We continued up onto a wide track on the top of a ridge with extensive views to the north and good views of the new road to the south! After a mile or so we left the ridge and descended to the north to the village of Chalton. We meandered our way through the village then took a track which took us across the M1 and then a footbridge took us across a railway line. We crossed a crop field and a disused pit, now undulating and through increasingly wooded scrubland. We passed a group of motorbike scramblers, suitably mud-covered. The route of the Chiltern Way shown on the map and the route shown on the ground were not entirely consistent, and we ended up taking a mixture of both (thus avoiding what looked like a totally unnecessary descent and ascent) and soon reached the road on the outskirts of Upper Sundon. We ignored the map and just followed the road for a short distance through the village, rejoining the Icknield Way Path and taking a path beside a pub.
The final section of today's walk, from Upper Sundon back to the Sundon Hills Country Park, is shown on the map as going past yet another sewage works (the third today) but on the ground we were back in glorious rolling Chilterns countryside, which could be a million miles from the housing developments and roads we had crossed since leaving the Dunstable Downs. All too soon we reached the road just to the north of the car park from where a footpath brought us back to the waiting car, with rather more extensive views than there had been this morning in the mist.