Maulden to Deadman's Cross
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 3rd July 2016
About 7 miles of walking (just over 3 hours) almost all on a route of the Greensand Ridge Walk - but we weren't always quite on the official route, and the route has altered around Deadman's Cross, so the final half mile didn't end up advancing us in the right direction.
Click here for all our photos of this walk.
This was the first walk I can remember for ages on which it felt like a real summer afternoon, though even today wasn't as hot as you might expect for July. It was warm and sunny and very pleasant walking, though occasionally wet and muddy underfoot.
There are several car-parks close to the point where the Greensand Ridge Walk crosses the A600; I headed first to Haynes Village Hall, but there was a large "private" sign there, so I kept going to the car park marked on the OS map at TL115416. This is a large car park, but it is right opposite Chicksands Bike Park in Rowney Warren, so it was completely full of large vans and other cycle-related vehicles. There is a layby opposite the car park and I found a space there; fortunately Richard (whose iPad's "Maps" App sent him a slightly different way to mine) was driving along the road at exactly the point at which I pulling into the layby, so we didn't have any difficulty finding each other. We left one car at Rowney Warren and drove in the other one back to Maulden Church (TL058381), where we had parked last week.
We ate our lunch and pottered around Maulden Churchyard and the Ailesbury Mausoleum before leaving by way of the Maulden Church Meadow nature reserve. After crossing the meadow, we veered to the right and for the next mile or so we were either going round or through Maulden Wood. The countryside here is distinctly undulating and the signposting was a bit poor in places (especially around Clayhill Cottages) but the woods were lovely and there were good views from time to time, in particular to the south, to the ridge we walked along on the Icknield Way Path. We met a few other walkers and a horse-rider.
A forest track brought us down to the A6 and we crossed the road and took a somewhat overgrown path alongside it. We left the road and followed a waymarked route which climbed up steeply through the trees of Readshill Plantation. We reached open land at the top but the signposting here was again unclear. We took a right hand turn which took us back through the trees on a narrow path parallel to the A6. This was fairly obviously not the correct route, but it descended steeply to the corner to the north of Clophill where a minor road reaches the A6, and a short walk along the minor road brought us back to where we were meant to be.
We followed back lanes and footpaths around Clophill, a lovely village with houses built amongst the trees. We passed some delightful highland cattle, with cows and calves and at least one bull.
Eventually, the ruins of the Clophill Old Church became visible on the hill in front of us and after a short walk along Great Lane we took a path up towards the Church.
We passed a man out dog-walking and noticed some buildings to our right, but I couldn't decide from afar whether they were upmarket dwellings or grotty mobile homes; in fact it turns out that these are the recently completed Clophill Eco Lodges. Furthermore Clophill Old Church, which had developed a reputation for grave desecration, has recently been restored, and is now used as something of a venue, with tours of the tower available (though not when we were there). The views from the top of the tower must be lovely.
We reached woodland and took a path along the edge of first Pedley Wood and then Chicksands Wood, passing a few other walkers and cyclists. Eventually this brought us to Appley Corner. Our car was parked less than a kilometre from here but, for whatever reason, the Greensand Ridge Walk does not follow the obvious route. We turned left along the road (away from our car) then climbed up a track across fields to Haynes, with good views behind us.
As we approached Haynes, a low flying vintage aircraft passed us, and we later realised (after seeing more vintage aircraft) that this was probably from the nearby Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden. From Haynes we took a track across the fields to the hamlet of Deadman's Cross on the A600.
The map shows the route of the Greensands Ridge Walk as turning right along the main road, back to the cross-roads close to where we had left the car (and then turning left along the minor road opposite and following roads for a couple of miles). However we noticed a "permissive" summer route which does not turn right onto the A600, but instead crosses the road and then follows a track between Warden Great Wood and Warden Little Wood. This looks a much nicer route, but for now we needed to get back to the car, so our only option was to follow the original route of the Greensands Ridge Walk alongside the A600.
