Tadlow to Gamlingay Cinques

Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 18th September 2016

6.3 miles (2.25 hours), about 6 miles on route of Clopton Way

Click here for all our photos of this walk.

We had some difficulty spotting a suitable parking place around the middle of the Clopton Way on the map, so we decided to meet up in the car park we had discovered at Gamlingay Cinques (TL227528) at the end of the Greensand Ridge Walk, and thus to take just one car back through Cockayne Hatley and Wrestlingworth towards Tadlow. For all our anxiety, we quickly found a good little lay-by down a lane at TL276477. It was about 3pm when we set off, joining the Clopton Way as the road turned sharp left.

We continued on past New England Farm and out onto fields where in the distance a tractor was ploughing.We took a path (actually not the route of the Clopton Way as shown on the map) around a field. We continued on past Hatley Gate, and the route we were on became more and more track-like, with views towards the small village of Cockayne Hatley and its picturesque church beyond.

A woman and teenage boy came cycling past us, then a short while later a man a young girl cycled past us in the opposite direction. We didn't think a great deal about this until first a dog and then a woman and teenage boy on foot came towards us at speed, heading in the same direction as the cyclists. Yes, this was the same woman and teenage boy, and they were all part of one family - the idea had been that they would swap the bikes over, with the dog staying with the walkers - but the dog had other ideas and so was chasing the cyclists, and the "walkers" were chasing the dog.

We reached Cockayne Hatley, which is delightfully isolated (it can be reached by road only from the west). After walking through the village, we cut across fields to the Church, which sits next to Cockayne Hatley Hall. There were bags of apples for sale for £1, so we bought one and munched an apple each as we continued on our walk (having put the rest in the rucksack), a wonderfully autumnal occupation.

A track took us back from the Church to Hatley Road, which we followed for about half a mile to a water tower. Here we turned right along another track which led to Potton Wood. Before we entered the wood there were good views to the Sandy Heath transmitter back to the west. After finding our way through the wood, following the Clopton Way signs on a route that's not quite what the OS map shows, we emerged onto farmland with good views to Gamlingay to the northwest.

We walked down to the B1040 to the south of Gamlingay and followed the road towards the village centre for a short distance. I thought we must be nearly back at the car, but it was further than I'd expected. However it was also more interesting and more rural than I'd expected; we meandered our way along backstreets, tracks and footpaths, though the hamlet of Dennis Green and as we reached Gamlingay Cinques we had a low-flying hot-air balloon for company.

Gamlingay Cinques is both another hamlet and the name given to a small remnant of the once expansive Gamlingay Great Heath. There is a nature reserve here and this is where we had parked the car.

We drove back to rescue the other car from its parking place near Tadlow, but of my journey from here to the Bedford South Premier Inn, perhaps the least said the better. It is quite a long way; it doesn't really make sense to be walking here when staying the other side of Bedford, but hey ho! More problematically, I decided that I knew the way, so went heading across to and up the A1198 - and proceeded to get lost around Caxton. Richard meanwhile had the sense to use the maps app on his iPad, which took him an entirely different and faster route.