Balsham to Great Chesterford
Walked by Sally and Richard on Friday 16th September 2011
About 9 miles of walking on the Icknield Way Path plus 2 miles home from Downham Market Station
Click here for photographs taken on this leg of the walk
It had rained during the night and the morning was misty, with a few spots of rain, but the sun came out later. We had a pleasant breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon, then I did battle with some urgent work email (no 3G signal inside the Black Bull, but fine sitting outside) and we left about 8.45.
Today's walk was essentially a climb up and then a descent into Linton, then another up and down to Great Chesterford. There were atmospheric misty views from the track to the south of Balsham. We followed a dog-leg along a Roman Road to the road between Balsham and Linton, and followed it for a while (past the entrance to Chilford Hall, with its vineyard which we visited many years ago – but we couldn’t see any sign of the vines today). However the road skirts round Rivey Hill, whilst we climbed up to the water tower on the top, then descended through woodland to Linton.
There seems to be some confusion about whether Linton is a village or a town, but having lived in South Cambridgeshire, I'm quite comfortable with the concept of a large village, with its own Village College (school). Linton has the modern housing developments that are pretty much par for the course this close to Cambridge, but it also has a very attractive old centre.
We stopped to buy provisions for lunch at the Co-op, and in putting these into my rucsac realised that I'd left my walking poles at the Black Bull. Annoying, but if this was going to happen anywhere on our walking exploits, Balsham is about as good as it gets. Richard is taking the car for an MoT in Cambridge (just 8 miles from Balsham) on Monday, so will pick them up then. We walked around part of the Heritage Trail, past the Church (lots of pushchairs parked outside, so we stayed out!), attractive medieval buildings and a ford - with a rather aggressive duck that gave the appearance of walking off in a huff when we didn't feed it.
We crossed the A1307 and passed more attractive thatched cottages and Linton Zoo, then turned right onto a track, right on the Cambridgeshire/Essex border. We climbed up to a triangulation point at 114 metres, and a row of pylons slightly higher. We stayed at around this height for a while, crossing 'Great Chesterford Common', which is actually agricultural land! We passed Burtonwood Farm and reached a newly surfaced track, which descended steadily for over a mile.
We crossed the B184 and walked into the centre of Great Chesterford, another very pretty village, despite the fact that it is extremely close to the M11/A11 junction. We passed the Church, then turned left, crossed the river and walked down the minor road to the station. The station is not staffed, so we bought tickets from the machine, then ate our lunch sitting on the platform, waiting for the 13.05 to Cambridge. This connected nicely with the 13.35 to Downham Market, so even after walking home from the station, we were back home around 3pm after a lovely few days away.
