Sandy to Gamlingay Cinques
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 11th September 2016
5.4 miles, 5.2 miles on route of Greensand Ridge Walk
Click here for all our photos of this walk.
We had an early lunch at home then drove to Gamlingay Cinques; it was a warm sunny day (during the following week, when I was at a conference in Newcastle, the south of England had record breaking temperatures for September) and the roads were busy. There is a new (or newly restored) car park for the nature reserve at Gamlingay Cinques (at TL227528) which I missed the first time I drove past, but it is an excellent place to park. We left my car there and drove back to Sandy in Richard's car and parked in the same car park off the High Street (TL174493) as last week. After our route-finding problems in Sandy last week, we'd checked the route on the very helpful Central Bedfordshire website. The route through residential streets and across a footbridge over the railway (the East Coast Main Line) was actually signposted; I'm not sure if we'd have noticed the signposts if we had not known where to look.
Over the railway line we climbed onto a wooded hill which appears to be known as the Pinnacle. Sandy was an important centre in Roman Times, but Caesar's Fort on the Pinnacle actually dates to pre-Roman times. We skirted around the edge of the hill, through lovely woodland, and emerged onto Sand Lane. Although Sand Lane is marked as a minor road on the map, there is no through route for cars back across the railway into Sandy, so we had mostly cyclists for company. We descended, still through woodland, then turned left onto a track which felt more like a footpath just before we reached Everton Road (which is the road we had driven down on our approach to Sandy not long before).
The footpath descended across scrubland beneath Sandy Heath (we could see the Sandy Heath Television transmitter to our right from time to time). We had to negotiate some cattle, one of which looked big and male and...ah yes, there was the ring in its nose...Although I have come to realise that female cows, especially when with young, can be at least as threatening as bulls, I don't much like passing close to any of them; I gave the group a very wide berth.
The track, which follows the route of a Roman road, became more track-like and the surface was concrete. At point where our track crossed a similar perpendicular one on the line between Lowfield Farm and Hazells Hall Farm, we waited to let a horse box pass; the driver gave us a friendly wave. We continued straight ahead for another kilometre or so, then it was our turn to turn right and climb back onto the Greensand Ridge. This was perhaps the steepest climb we've had on the whole route of the Greensand Ridge Walk (or perhaps it was just the warm weather that made it hard work) but at the top we were rewarded by good views back to the west. There is also a bench here.
We continued ahead on a passageway that emerged onto the road in Everton. There was another plaque with a poem written to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee here, but it wasn't so much targeted at walkers as last week's. We turned left along the road to the Thornton Arms. Here the road we were on (which we had also driven along, in the opposite direction) turned to the right, but we continued straight ahead on a pretty lane. This brought us to a delightful little church and open parkland.
We continued across the parkland, apparently associated with Woodbury Hall. The direction of the Sun meant that we couldn't photograph Woodbury Hall to our left, but there were good views to White Wood on our right. The parkland gave the impression of having once been carefully manicured, but having been allowed to revert to a more natural state in recent years. We were initially on a tarmacked track, but as we passed Woodbury Home Farm we took a footpath across a field.
At a track we turned right and then left, to continue along the ridge past Old Woodbury and Tetworth Hall. However our attention was drawn to events closer at hand on the Tetworth Estate. A "hunter trial" was taking place so we passed first lots of horse boxes, then lots of people and horses milling around, then the circuit on which the horses were being put through their paces, with each jump or other obstacle being watched over by a steward in a car. Meanwhile we heard over the loudspeakers that the event was running slightly behind time and the final class of the day was about to start. It was clearly a family-friendly event and it felt happy and very English; a fitting end to our walk along the Greensand Ridge.
Yes, we were nearly at the end. A short distance after the activity of the hunter trial we had a final view back from the Greensand Ridge, then turned right along a road for the short distance to Gamlingay Cinques. Gamlingay Cinques Common is one of the few remaining parts of the once extensive Gamlingay Great Heath and is unusual for Cambridgeshire (which we had slipped into near Tetworth) because it is on dry sandy soil. It seems a slightly odd place for the trail to end, because it is not even Gamlingay proper, which is half a mile or so further on. There is an 'extension' route available to Gamlingay, but it's along a road; we were happy enough to finish at Gamlingay Cinques to which we expect to return soon to start the Clopton Way. For now we rescued the other car from Sandy then drove (a long way round because of roadworks) to the Bedford South Premier Inn where we were spending the night.