Sundon Hills Country Park to Lilley
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 4th August 2019
9.8 miles (4 hours 30 mins including breaks) almost all on route of Chiltern Way
For photographs taken on this walk click here
This whole section is a mass of footpaths, making it quite difficult to work out from the map which route we should be on, with the Chiltern Way, the Icknield Way Path and the John Bunyan Trail sometimes sharing paths whilst sometimes subtly different routes. There was a lot of today's walk which we had done before, on the Icknield Way Path on 13th and 14th Nov 2011 and on the John Bunyan Trail on 17th April and 17th Sept 2017. We'd walked around most (but not all) of the Sharpenhoe Clappers before; a "clapper" is a rabbit warren, but the characteristic and delightful feature of the Sharpenhoe Clappers is the wooded slopes, and in places top, of a protruding ridge of chalk. We'd walked around here in late autumn and spring, but never in the height of summer. As expected, the trees were lovely and there were also several delightful wildflower meadows, and the wildflowers attract a spectacular display of butterflies, some of which I suspect are rather rare. In turn the butterflies attract prize specimens of the greater spotted (or otherwise) butterfly spotter; I'll explain... Although there was one section of the whole walk which was not particularly exciting, overall it was massively nicer than the impression you would get when told we were very close to Luton. It was essentially dry all day but it was overcast some of the time, which was good as it stopped it from being unbearably hot.
First of all we had to get to the Chilterns from Norfolk. Despite getting up at 6am, we didn't leave home as early as we had hoped, but it didn't really matter; we had no constraints at the other end of the day. We were directed a pleasantly different route from any of the ones we use when driving to Milton Keynes, making use of both the M11 and the A1(M). When you live in Norfolk, with no motorways, this is very exciting, and in fact we went on a third motorway, the M1, on our journey back to the flat in MIlton Keynes in the afternoon.
The Chiltern Way guidebook suggests parking in the large car park by the Cassel Memorial Hall in Lilley, and if this sounds too good to be true, it is! We couldn't really pretend not to have seen the "Patrons only" signs at the entrance so after some conscience searching, we decided to move elsewhere and found a reasonable parking place opposite the Lilley Arms on West Street (TL117265). As I was putting on my walking boots and transferring to Richard's car, a woman in the pub was watching us, but this was clearly a public road not their car park, so we ignored her. We drove the short distance to the Sundon Hills Country Park (TL047286), where we have now parked a number of times. We were the second car this morning and I have never seen this car park full.
We set off, walking towards the Sharpenhoe Clappers, with a couple of dog walkers and a field of sheep for company. However the path doesn't go straight to the Clappers, instead heading south and meandering irritatingly around field boundaries. Eventually though we reached the lovely trees, and some distance later, we crossed a road and the Sharpenhoe Clappers car park. The path through the car park was blocked by a fair-sized group of people, and the leader assumed we were coming to join them - "butterflies or walkers" he said, but by "walkers" I think he meant people going on an organised walk. We had to explain that we were walking independently, then we had to pick our way behind them to continue the walk; it didn't seem to occur to any of them to move!
We continued around the Clappers, in a delightful section, but one with rather limited signposting, and we recognised some bits where the route had been unclear when we were here on the John Bunyan Trail; It wasn't any better on the Chiltern Way, though we reckoned - correctly, that we couldn't go far wrong if we walked close to the slope, but didn't descend. We had actually expected to have to descend at the northern extremity of the Clappers, then climb up the slope again, but a helpful sign painted on a tree trunk indicated that whilst the Chiltern Way Extension descends steeply [and in fact we climbed UP this section in the northern extension in November 2019] we could stay on the top, almost doubling back on ourselves. This little bit, until reunited with the Icknield Way Path (which cuts across the Sharpenhoe Clappers whilst the Chiltern Way follows the edge religiously), was one section that we hadn't walked before. Signposting remained a little intermittent, but we found the route, including a point where we did briefly descend quite steeply.
We temporarily left the woodland and took a left-hand fork to emerge onto a chalk meadow, an absolute mass of wildflowers and butterflies. We passed a couple with a dog who appeared to be butterfly-watching. Shortly afterwards we noticed the big group we'd left behind in the car park, who had presumably taken the Icknield Way route which is much more direct. There were lots of them, mostly middle-aged men, and they were extremely difficult to overtake. Eventually we managed it, just as the more enthusiastic members of the group went diving off the path to observe some particular species. I like butterflies and would have been interested to know more about what they were looking at, but big groups like this just irritate me. Sorry, I'm a grumpy old woman!
As we completed our circumnavigation of the Sharpenhoe Clappers, around the edge of the Smithcombe Valley, Watergutter Hide and Cow Hide, the land at the top of the slope was agricultural, with a combine harvester busy harvesting the crop. We were above the A6 for a while, then we reached the rather busy road from the A6 into Streatley and turned right onto it, past a couple of litter pickers. We reached Streatley just opposite The Chequers, where we stayed on 13th November 2011, and we turned past the pub and into the Churchyard. There were benches where we could have stopped for lunch, but our progress had been faster than expected so it was too early. Instead we continued onto a path which runs parallel with the road out of Streatley to the south then back to the road. One of our previous routes had then taken us across fields again, but the Chiltern Way follows the road to the A6 and then across the A6 onto a track past Swedish Cottages. The next bit was boring and not very attractive; a straight track alongside a power line, but we were getting hungry and wanted a break, so about two thirds of the way along we stopped for lunch, sitting on the grass verge by the track. Curiously, given this was definitely the least attractive section of the whole walk, we were passed by a runner and a couple of walkers as we had our lunch.
Refreshed, we continued along the track, then turned right and walked towards Galley Hill, clearly visible ahead of us. First of all we reached Maulden Firs and crossed the ancient route of the Icknield Way before climbing Galley Hill, again a mass of wildflowers. From the top there were views down to a golf course and Luton beyond to our right. whilst to our left there was a crop field, with a trig point in the middle of it. The correct route from here to Warden Hill was not entirely clear, but we found it OK, by not descending across the golf course, rather continuing along by the crop field and then taking a right hand turning. The route on the map showed us continuing along this track and descending to the bottom of the hill, then turning left and climbing up again, so we were pleased to see the Chiltern Way signposted off the track to the left, up onto Warden Hill, thus cutting off a corner and preventing us from losing height.
We did eventually descend steeply, then turned left onto an undulating path, now heading away from Luton. After passing Whitehall Wood and a reservoir, we reached Whitehall Farm where we turned left. From here we headed towards Lilley across more fields of crops, then we skirted Lilleypark Wood and emerged in Lilley right by the Cassel Memorial Hall. There was an event at the Hall, but the car park wasn't full, so we would probably have been OK to leave a car here. There was a playground behind the Hall, and a silver-coloured statue of a lion. Perhaps this is the former site of Lilley's other pub, "The Silver Lion" but whatever it appears (from a website I can't find as I'm writing up this walk) that the family who owned the estate of which Lilley is the estate village had a lion as their mascot.
It also appears that Lilley was a centre for non conformists, and John Bunyan is reputed to have preached here in secret. So perhaps my previous mutterings about the detour of the John Bunyan Trail to get to Lilley were unjustified. I certainly prefer the route that the Chiltern Way took to get here, or perhaps I was just in a bad mood in 2017. Today, we walked past the Church and the seat on which we sat for a snack last time we were here, and we also noticed that the village sign indicates that Lilley is in Hertfordshire. That was a surprise. We had indeed passed back from Bedfordshire into Hertfordshire in the middle of the field we crossed on the approach to Lilley, and Luton is surprisingly close to the county border. I think we will now stay in Hertfordshire for several legs; indeed, unless we walk the eastern extension, I think that's Bedfordshire done.
