I'm hoping for an interesting walk today! The weather forecast has improved greatly as we set off from the village of Lidlington. A small village in central Bedfordshire in the Marston Vale area.
We are quickly out of the residential area and into open countryside, walking in an anti-clockwise direction. We are walking parallel to the railway line with Brogborough (also known as Lidlington Lake) further in the distance. We stumble upon a startled Chinese Water Deer in the undergrowth. It's a close call as to who is the most surprised. We watch as it makes its way up the hillside. Which is also the direction we need to head towards Upper Boughton End. There are some great views as we get up on the ridge, looking back towards Lidlington..
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The hamlet of Boughton End is mostly farm buildings and cottages. An abandoned barn is always worth exploring, you quite often find a Barn Owl nesting in the rafters. No such luck on this occasion though. We pick up the Greensand Way, I have walked some of this in the distant past. Local speculation is that the ridge was the model for the "Delectable Mountains" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.Lidlington Hill may also be Bunyan's "Hill of Difficulty".The Greensand Way in Bedfordshire a long-distance walk of 40 miles (64 km) that crosses Bedfordshire, with brief sections in Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire. From its southern endpoint at Leighton Buzzard, the route runs northeast to Gamlingay. We continue on a woodland path towards 'Jackdaw Hill'. We skirt the edge of Millbrook Golf Course , between Woburn and the historic market town of Ampthill.Indigenous Pine and Silver Birch line many of the holes.The Greensand soil is very good for drainage and the course looks in great condition.
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We reach a point where we can see Millbrook Church in the distance. Away to our left is the Millbrook Vehicle Proving Ground. This is an amazing place, one of the last testing centres in Europe. Included are a wide range of testing tracks which include a Hill route, which includes a 'ski jump'. technical and twisty circuits and a high speed banked bowl. It's a lovely walk through the woodland and we spot another Chinese Water Deer.The terrain is what you might call 'undulating' as the path winds between the trees. We have gone pretty much full circle around the golf course.
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| 1 in 1 slope! |
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Through one of the gaps in the fencing I spot the steepest of slopes, graded a 1 in 1. Not sure I would fancy going up or down that one... The afternoon sunshine is making for a lovely light through the trees. We are now also running parallel to the 300 site of Woburn Center Parcs. The lodges are dotted all over the site , right up to the fence. We cross the A507 towards Blackhatfields Plantation and Coney Hill.We carry on towards the other side of Jackdaw Hill.
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| Millbrook Trig |
We climb steadily to reach Trig Point S6759 AT 133 metres, positioned midway between Millbrook and Liddington. It was built on the 26th of February 1952, at a cost of £10 16s 2d.Hidden in the brambles it is in good condition. We also get further glimpses of the Millbrook Vehicle Proving Ground. Millbrook has been used in the filming of many television programmes and films including; 'Top Gear', 'Britain's Worst Driver and most famously of all 'The Aston Martin' crash scene in the James Bond film 'Casino Royale'. A world record was actually set for the most cannon roles by a car. Stunt driver Adam Kirley rolled an Aston Martin DBS seven times. The stunt was filmed on the Alpine handling course and three Aston Martin DBS stunt cars were destroyed during the filming of the sequence. A very interesting link to the filming is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fikyvgc-fOM
It has been a very enjoyable woodland walk , with some interesting points along the route. In total we have covered a total of 7.4 miles.
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