Water Eaton to Stony Stratford

We had stayed overnight at our favourite Premier Inn ("Bedford South") because I was singing in a Newport Pagnell Singers concert at the Chrysalis Theatre the previous evening. The concert went better than I had feared would be the case, and the Chrysalis Theatre is a lovely little place, but it was sleeting as we walked back to our car and drove from Milton Keynes to Bedford, so I'd half expected to wake to a covering of snow. Fortunately this was not the case, and whilst we were walking the weather was dry and sunny, if quite cool. This was our final leg of the Milton Keynes Boundary Walk (though only because we had chosen to start in Stony Stratford - remember that the route is a circuit) and in some senses it was the least good section of the trail, the fundamental issue being that the MK Boundary is closer to housing as it loops to the south-west of the city than it is to the north-east. However there were also some pleasant surprises. Read on!

After a leisurely breakfast we drove both cars to the car park on the outskirts of Stony Stratford (SP789397) where we had started the MK Boundary Walk back in November, and here we took a photo of our two new (to us) cars together for the first time! We decided to take the smaller car back to the little parking place (SP883318 - near the Grand Union Canal, north of the A4146 to the south-east of Bletchley) where we had parked before, in case space was tight. This was worth doing - do note that this car park is small, though there are plenty of other places in the area where you could leave a car if necessary. It is also worth noting that we tried to take a 'clever' route between the two car parks, but that it is best just to get to the A5 as soon as possible (at its junction with Monks Way, the A422) and to follow the A5 to its junction with the A4146.

I took some photographs of the Grand Union Canal whilst Richard was putting his walking boots on, then we set off along a quiet road on the edge of Bletchley. To our right was the famous - or infamous - Lakes Estate, built as London overspill in the 1960s. I've read somewhere that there was a plan to centre the new town of Milton Keynes around here, but in fact the centre ended up further north. We passed through some housing to another road and turned left to cross over the railway (the west coast main line).

Almost immediately we hit the day's major problem. There should have been a path on the other side of the road, but instead there was a half built housing estate (Marsh Leys). There may be a path through somewhere, but we had a couple of false starts trying to find it, so we eventually walked around by road to Newton Longville. It was a bit tedious and initially the road was busy, but after the right-hand turn near Rectory Farm there were fewer cars, and we made rapid progress. There were some good views back to Marsh Leys (more attractive in the distance) and over a yellow field of oilseed rape, to Bletchley and the telecommunication mast on the Greensand Ridge above Bow Brickhill.

In Newton Longville we passed a pretty little Church, but otherwise the route through was rather drab (there may be interesting bits, but we didn't walk past them).

We turned right, at long last on a proper grassy footpath, but unfortunately it was rather muddy. We crossed a stream and went under a disused railway viaduct, then at last there was some decent walking across fields to Weasel Lane, with modern developments in Milton Keynes visible in the not too distant distance. We turned left onto Weasel Lane (a track), then after a kilometre or so, we turned right onto the road to the delightfully named Bottledump Roundabout.

And that was the first pleasant surprise of the day. We were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch, so just before reaching the A421 at Bottledump Roundabout, we turned right where the car park and picnic site are marked on the map. You'd have difficulty getting a car into the car park (there are bollards across the entrance) but there are benches - and when we were there were also cowslips and birds singing. It was a pleasant spot for a break.

We retraced our steps to the minor road and crossed it, and here was a route under the A421 without having to do battle with the traffic at the roundabout. We emerged onto one of Milton Keynes' redways and so to a grassy (if damp under foot) climb up a narrow strip of land to the west of Tattenhoe Park. We reached a road, busy with cyclists, and a new upmarket housing development on the right. We continued onto a path, very obviously a "boundary" path here, with housing to our right and open countryside on our left. This arrangement continued for a mile or so; many of the houses were large and could be mistaken for individually designed country residences - until you noticed the similar properties next to them and other houses packed close behind.

The North Bucks Way joined us and, by way of the same footpath joining from the left, the Midshires Way and the Swan's Way departed, and we had good views to Whaddon Hall. Then, as we approached Woodhill Prison, it suddenly it felt as if we were in the middle of no-where. The prison itself was only just visible and we were on a muddy track through woodland, complete with bluebells, and the sun was shining through the trees in Oakhill Wood to our left.

Just after leaving Oakhill Wood we really DID head off into open countryside - heading downhill on a footpath across the fields, with Oakhill Wood and, further away, Whaddon Hall, still to our left. There were a number of other people about: just before we left the almost due north route that we had been on, a man with two small children on bikes asked us how muddy the route was - he then appeared to lift the bikes over the stile and onto the route we were taking, which might have reduced the immediate mud problem but didn't seem a terribly sensible proposition. Slightly further on, we would have missed the correct route (away from Oakhill Wood rather than hugging its boundary) if there had not been a group of walks on the correct path coming towards us.

We reached a road and turned right onto it before taking a (well hidden) path to the left and climbing across a grassy field to "Lady Carrington's Gorse". I'm not actually sure what "Lady Carrington's Gorse" on the map refers to, but we walked along an attractive grassy track between hawthorn hedges and negotiated an incomplete stile. We were approaching the end of the walk now. The attractive Church at Calverton came into view, and after some walking around field boundaries we joined the Ouse Valley Way. We walked through fields of sheep, now with three churches (Calverton, Passenham and Stony Stratford) in view, as well as Calverton's Manor Farm. Last time we were here we didn't manage to find the right route, but we did this time, emerging onto the road and then taking a path just inside the hedge for the short distance to the car park by the River Ouse, from which we had started out on the Milton Keynes Boundary Walk back in November. The building work that had been there then, and when we passed here on the Ouse Valley Way in 2014 is still here! We rescued the other car and drove back to the Bedford South Premier Inn.

If you are walking the MK Boundary Walk from a different starting point, click here for the next leg.