Bayford to Waterford on the Hertfordshire Way

As I set off for the station there was a ‘sunny interval’ with blue sky behind light clouds resembling the ripples of sand on a beach. Ahead lay dark cloud and the threat of a shower. The garden had been covered in hoar frost first thing. The birds however were in good voice and a magpie flew by with a long stick : nest-building time.

By the time I got to Bayford the sky was uniformly covered in cloud. I picked up the Hertfordshire Way and passed the buildings of the Manor Farm Estate:

Passing Manor Farm in Bayford

Cutting across  a field, the path runs alongside the railway line for a couple of miles:

The Hertfordshire way

The railway line follows a ridge from Enfield Chase northwards and much of this area is wooded. Ahead I caught a glimpse of a muntjac deer pursued by something brown and furry but too swift for me to see exactly what it was. These small deer were originally introduced at Woburn Abbey and come from China. I have seen them before in Broxbourne Woods and by the side of the A10 in Hoddesdon. A friend tells me they are now common in Enfield and have been seen in people’s gardens and even outside the Civic centre. Their habit of mating at any time of year has helped them spread and they have adapted well to life in England. It is thought that one factor helping them to spread is the railway:

The railway line to Hertford North near Bayford

The Hertfordshire Way skirts the town of Hertford and then crosses its historic centre by All Saints Church. I had my lunch in the churchyard. The red sandstone of this church reminded me of Carlisle Cathedral, which is also of red sandstone. The present church replaces a fifteenth century one destroyed by fire in 1891 but All Saints is one of two Hertford churches to be mentioned in the Domesday book. Since Hertford hosted the very first Synod of all English bishops in 673AD it seems likely there may have been a church here even earlier. In this church Samuel Stone was baptised. He was the Puritan minister who, with Thomas Hooker, founded the town of Hartford in Connecticut, USA.

All Saints Church Hertford.

Few towns have kept their distinctive identity quite as well as Hertford.

It has a range of interesting and ancient buildings possibly because in addition to a range of interesting and ancient historical events it has an active preservation society. However the town’s website is full of news of superstore expansion.

I was impressed to learn that after the defeat of the Danes in 896 (the subject, incidentally of my son’s A level project, so always a matter of interest to me) Hertford became a frontier town with the Danelaw (now known as Essex) just across the river. There was for many years a Danish sword, which had been found in the river, in the Hertford museum but I heard that it had been stolen.

Parliament Square, Hertford

The name of Parliament Square commemorates the fact that Parliament re-located to the castle to avoid the plague in London in 1563. The Hart, symbol of the county of Hertfordshire, stands proudly on top of the war memorial.

Now, fortunately for me I have been to Hertford many times so I know where to find the public toilets. They are in the castle grounds, which is like a public park in the centre of town, very handy for the shops. However I found one more instance of the privatisation and concealment of public toilets. No longer obvious, they are now attached to a Wetherspoon’s pub.

The castle is actually the gatehouse of the former royal palace. In this Queen Elizabeth 1 spent part of her childhood and James 1 of Scotland was a prisoner.

Hertford Castle

The walls still visible in the grounds date from 1170-1174 and are from the earlier

Norman fortress.

As I followed the Hertfordshire Way out of town I went past the library, where I once heard Wendy Cope reading her poems. I remember she read:

TICH MILLER

Tich Miller wore glasses

with elastoplast pink frames

and had one foot three sizes larger than the other

When they picked teams for outdoor games

she and I were always the last two

left standing by the wire-mesh fence.

We avoided one another’s eyes,

stooping, perhaps to re-tie a shoe-lace,

or affecting interest in the flight

of some fortunate bird, and pretended

not to hear the urgent conference

‘Have Tubby!’  ’No, no, have Tich’

Usually they chose me, the lesser dud,

and she lolloped, unselected,

to the back of the other team.

At eleven we went to different schools.

In time I learned to get my own back,

sneering at hockey-players who couldn’t spell.

Tich died when she was twelve.

Hertford library with the remains of St Mary the Less

By the side are a fragment of the remains of a church, discovered in the building of the library. Shortly afterwards are the striking buildings of Mc Mullens and the Hertford brewery

McMullens

The Hertford Brewery

Port vale, at the foot of the ancient settlement of Bengeo had pretty cottages:

heading out of Hertford

This, for me is a less familiar area and the path follows the course of the river Beane, of which I had frankly never heard

industrial heritage

possibly because it’s a stream:

The River Beane

Be that as it may, the Hertfordshire Way follows a very pleasant path through Waterford marshes to Waterford, where having reached the edge of Explorer map 174, I turned round and walked back to Hertford North station. Today has added eight miles to the total.

Waterford

A short trip to Bayford

Having awoken to a light dusting of snow at the end of January , I headed out to the village of Bayford, determined to feel the warmth of the winter sun after a week of mostly sedentary activities:

This short walk was of four miles and very slippery underfoot.

.

Three Palaces on the Capital Ring

lake with dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park

After heavy snow mid-January saw a lull in the severe weather and I rejoined the Capital Ring at Falconwood. The walk goes  past two homes of the wealthy, now in public use,  and one people’s palace in ruins .

As ever the directions provided by Colin Saunders proved easy to follow, although a kind lady pointed out that in Eltham  the public toilets have been swallowed up by a superstore, which of course has its own toilets. Had it not been for her inquiring if I was looking for the Capital Ring I would not have known this as, of course ,there is no signpost to the toilets in the superstore. Whatever deal had been done with the council on the siting of the superstore, the need for a public toilet, as so often, seems to have been ignored. I saw no evidence in Eltham of a community toilet scheme, which in other places sometimes tries to address the national dearth of public toilets. However, I suppose the charm of the Capital Ring is that it goes through places not destined to be a haven for tourists and thus equipped with tourist facilities.

Impossible to come to Eltham without thinking of that other family who, like us, are still waiting for justice for the murder of their child. Not far away in Burundi, but here in London, the family of Stephen Lawrence have not yet seen anyone convicted of his murder. I often think of them as , apart from anything else, Stephen was the same age as my own son.

However Eltham is home to a splendid palace where the Kings of England lived from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries before Henry V111 preferred Greenwich or Hampton Court. When I went it was closed but it looks as though it would be an interesting place to visit in the summer:

Eltham Palace

From here King John’s Walk,  running alongside the palace grounds, leads eventually to magnificent views over the city with Canary Wharf (as ever} discernible on the horizon  and the tall buildings of The Square Mile including ‘The Gherkin’.

Before taking the path towards Grove Park I photographed ‘ Fairmount’, now a residential home, which had belonged to the great cricketer W.G. Grace:

W.G. Grace's former home

There’s quite a lot of road-walking on this section of the Capital Ring. However the Downham Woodland Walk  continues for over a mile and crosses the Meridian line. It is another remnant of ‘The Great North Wood’

Downham Woodland Walk near the Meridian Line

I came to Beckenham Place Park. A large part of the park seems to have been given over to golf and the eighteenth century mansion, built by John Cator, is now the club house.

Looking up towards the mansion in Beckenham Place Park

Going on through the park and approaching the mansion there is a large white-painted squirrel statue:

John Cator incorporated  the grandiose portico of his former home  near Blackheath into his new house:

From here the route leads between the edges of Sydenham and Beckenham,  at one point sharing a path with cyclists on a track newly developed by the cycling charity, Sustrans, to the occasional confusion of pedestrians. Through Penge and then to  the Crystal Palace Park, developed in 1854.

lake in Crystal Palace

Near the eerie remains of the over-extended greenhouse-like structure which had been destroyed by fire one cold winter’s night in 1936, families enjoyed the fresh air, the city farm, and the display of dinosaurs which make this park like no other:

The walk had added a useful twelve miles to the total but my right eye was pricking and watering with the cold. It was still winter and I looked forward to enjoying tea with my family.