Hemel Hempstead to Tring Station
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 8th December 2019
Just over 8 miles (3 hours 10 minutes), about 7.5 miles on route of Grand Union Canal Walk
For our photographs taken on this walk click here
It was 18 months since we last walked a leg of the Grand Union Canal Walk, though I now walk along a short section of the canal on an almost daily basis on my way to work. We had a whole day together in the Milton Keynes area, following the Newport Pagnell Singers Christmas concert last night and this seemed an excellent opportunity to begin to investigate the parts of the canal which are nearer to London. We drove to Tring Station. Note: parking here is rather expensive - more than £6 even on a Sunday - but it is a convenient station, only about a 30 minute drive from the flat.
After buying tickets, and a short and rather chilly wait at Tring Station (with no facilities open on a Sunday morning, and building work in progress to give access by lift to all the platforms), we caught the 8.34 train for the short (9 minute) journey to Hemel Hempstead. Here there was some chaos because of a network problem. We tried to get cash from a cash point machine but, presumably because of the network problem, it wasn't working properly so we gave up. From the station it was a short walk to the canal, initially on the same route as we'd followed on our way to the Chiltern Way on 27th October this year. After crossing the A425 and a common we joined the canal at Bridge 149, by the Fishery Inn. We soon passed underneath Bridge 148, which is where we left the canal when on the Chiltern Way (which crosses the canal here).
Today's walk was not stunningly exciting, and the towpath was very muddy in places. However it was pleasant enough. As far as Berkamsted we were walking behind another couple; we were walking slightly faster than them and gained on them occasionally, but we kept stopping to take photographs, so we only once overtook them - and they soon came past us again. The canal climbs uphill steadily in this section, which means there are regular locks, and the west coast mainline runs alongside the canal for much of the way, so there were occasional trains for company. Soon we reached Winkwell Dock, home of a boatyard, Middlesex & Herts Boat Services, and a marina. Shortly afterwards we passed the pretty Three Horseshoes pub, next to a swing bridge.
We reached Berkhamsted, around half way along today's walk. I don't know the town, but from the canal it was most attractive, with regular information boards and various historic hostelries: the Rising Sun, the Boat Inn and the Crystal Palace (so called because the building was designed by Joseph Paxton, who also designed the London Crystal Palace), some attractive bridges...and a totem pole... We stopped for a snack at a bench in a little park opposite Beckhamsted Station. This is not the most attractive of places, but I mention it here because the remains of Beckamsted Castle are just the other side of the station, and I had spotted them from the train.
On the way out of Berkamsted we passed a boat just leaving a lock, with a tricky turn immediately afterwards. We also passed under an attractive modern footbridge with geese, ducks and swans on the canal. More boat and wildlife activity on the canal kept us amused to Dudswell, and as we walked past the lock here we realised we'd been here before, when on the Chiltern Way, when we parked in a layby on the main road in Dudswell and then walked along the canal on our legs to and from Cow Roast.
We soon reached Cow Roast, whose name (perhaps disappointingly?) is just a mis-rendering of Cow Rest, where cow pens enabled drovers to rest their animals on the way over the Chilterns. We too were at the summit; well just about. We soon entered the "Tring Cut", an attractive wooded cutting which we followed to Bridge 135, where we had joined the canal on what is described as the "following leg" and which we had walked across when walking the Ridgeway National Trail. Today all that remained for us to do was to walk back to Tring Station Carpark to our car, where we ate our lunch before driving back to the flat.
