Walk 5 : Tring Circular

Main walk 17.6km (11 miles), four hours 45 minutes walking time. For the whole outing, including meals and trains, allow nine hours.

Shorter walk from Ivinghoe Beacon to Bridgewater Monument: 13.2km (8.3 miles), or four hours walking time

To Ivinghoe Beacon and back: 11.3km (7 miles), or three hours thirty minutes walking time

Main Walk plus the Berkhamsted extension: 23.8km (14.9 miles), seven hours walking time

Shorter walk plus Berkhamsted extension: 17.0km (10.5 miles), five hours walking time

Tring to Berkhamsted short walk: 7.2km (4.5 miles), two hours 30 minutes walking time

OS Landranger Map: No 165. OS Explorer Map 181

5 out of 10

The first part of this route - following the Ridgeway along the Chiltern escarpment to Ivinghoe Beacon - is exhilarating, offering downland scenery as fine as anything on the South Downs. From the Beacon itself, it seems as if you can see half of England on a fine day. Then by way of contrast, you are then plunged into ancient Chiltern woodland, lovingly preserved by the National Trust. Tea is at a National Trust kiosk on the Ashridge Estate, or in a Tea Rooms in the stunningly pretty village of Aldbury. The paths are generally pleasant and easy underfoot, but note that on the Ridgeway the exposed chalk in some of the paths can be slippery in the wet, and in the woods the paths can be very muddy in winter. All of the climbing is in the first half of the walk: the second half is all flat or downhill.

Shortening or lengthening the walk: Directions are given at the end of the main text which allow you to vary the walk in several possible ways.

The Shorter walk from Ivinghoe Beacon to Bridgewater Monument avoids Little Gaddesden by using a direct route to the Bridgewater Monument. This makes a walk of 13.2km (8.3 miles)

Going to Ivinghoe Beacon and back makes a round trip of 11.3km (7 miles). Adding tea in Aldbury to this walk adds another 2.7km (1.7 miles)

Thirdly, you can use the 7.2km (4.5 miles) Extension from Aldbury to Berkhamsted Station, a pleasant walk through ancient woods,to extend any of the walks. The Main Walk plus the Berkhamsted extension is 23.8km (14.9 miles). The Shorter walk from Ivinghoe Beacon to Bridgewater Monument plus the Berkhamsted extension is 17.0km (10.5 miles).

Fourthly,by usingthe To reach Aldbury direct from Tring Station directions, and then the Extension from Aldbury to Berkhamsted directions, you can make a short walk of 9.5km (5.7 miles).

Just before the lunch stop on the main walk, in the hamlet of Ringshall, 10.2km (6.3 miles) into the walk you can also get a bus back to Tring Station (three buses a day) or Hemel Hempsted (five buses a day: Hemel Hempsted is on the train route to London): call 0870 608 2608 for details. The place where this bus goes from is indicated in the main walking instructions, just after point [7]

The 137km (85 mile) Ridgeway is supposed to be the oldest long distance footpath in England. Linking Ivinghoe Beacon with Avebury in Wiltshire, it is a route that has been in use for at least 5000 years. It is part of a track that originally stretched from the Wash in Norfolk to the Dorset Coast, and was used in more recent times by livestock drovers. Until the Enclosure Acts of the mid eighteenth century, the Ridgeway was a series of tracks on the crest of the downs, much as it still is today between Pitstone Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon. There is a map set in stone on the top of the Beacon that details the whole route

The most famous owner of the Ashridge Estate, across which much of the afternoon section of this walk passes,was Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. Known as the "Canal Duke", his pioneering work in the sector is commemorated in the Bridgewater Monument, erected in 1832 and next to the first tea stop on this walk. You can climb the monument for a small fee from 1pm to 5pm April to October weekends and bank holidays for fine views over the countryside: ask in the tea kiosk opposite to get access if the tower is not open during these hours (it depends on how many volunteers the Trust has available on any given day).

In 1759 Bridgewater employed engineer James Brindley to build a canal from Manchester to Worsley, Lancashire, one his other estates, to transport coal from his mines there. Brindley's innovation - a technique called "puddling" - enabled the canal to travel in an aqueduct across the Irwell River valley. The aqueduct became the wonder of the age, and sparked a canal building boom that lasted till the advent of the railways in the 1830s. Bridgewater himself is buried in Little Gaddesden Church. Ashridge House, which is situated at the other end of the grand avenue leading up to the monument, is now a well known business school. The grounds are owned by the National Trust.

Aldbury seems such a quintessentially typical English village that is hard to believe it is not a film set, and indeed has been used for this purpose on several occasions. With a pond, church, pub, tea room, post office, sundial and even a set of village stocks, it seems to have everything a village should have. Its population, 675 people in 1831, was said to have been swelled by the influx of workmen to build the nearby Tring Cutting, a major engineering feat of the early Victorian era, which allowed the London to Birmingham Railway, the first long distance railway line to reach London, to be built.

Berkhamsted (reached on the Extension to the main walk) was the childhood home of writer Graham Greene, whose father was the headmaster of Berkhamsted School. Berkhamsted Castle (tel 01375 858486), next to the railway station, is a classic Norman motte and bailey castle, built by Robert, Count of Mortain, the half brother of William the Conqueror. Thomas a Becket, Henry II's chancellor and later martyred when archbishop of Canterbury, lived here from 1155 to 1165. There is not much to see, just a few ruined walls, but entrance is free, and if you have just missed a train at Berkhamsted, it is worth a quick look. The castle is open until 4pm in winter and 6pm in summer.

Take the train nearest to 9.00am. If you miss this, there are trains every half hour. You can start an hour later if they are intending to have a picnic on Ivinghoe Beacon. Trains back from Tring are half hourly on all days but Sunday, when they are hourly.

Saturday Walkers Club members doing the 17.0km (10.5 miles) Shorter walk from Ivinghoe Beacon to Bridgewater Monument plus the Berkhamsted extension should get the train nearest to 9.00am as usual. However, if doing the 7.2km (4.5 miles) Short walk from Tring to Berhkhamsted, take the train nearest to 10.30am. This walk is basically just an afternoon stroll, but it is possible to have lunch in Albury near the start of it

there is a large station car park at Tring. If you do the extension to Berkhamsted, there are half hourly trains back to Tring Monday to Saturday, hourly on Sundays

is at the Bridgewater Arms in Little Gaddesden, tel 01442 842 408, a fine old country inn which offers a gourmet restaurant and somewhat cheaper bar meals from 12 to 2.30 daily. It has a small garden. On fine weekends, it might be an idea to phone and book for the restaurant. Note that this pub is 11.2km (7 miles) or 3 hours 15 minutes into the walk, so a reasonably early start from London is necessary to reach it by lunchtime.

If you are too late for the Bridgewater Arms, or if it is too full, go out of its front entrance and go right, and there is a post office almost next door which sells snack items. It is also only about 45 minutes walking from here to the tea kiosk at the Ashridge Estate Visitors Centre (see Tea), which is a possible late lunch option.

On a warm sunny day, an alternative is to have a picnic anywhere between Pitstone Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon, the latter being 5.6km (3.5 miles) into the walk.

On the Shorter walk from Ivinghoe Beacon to Bridgewater Monument, lunch is at the relatively upmarket Greyhound Inn (tel 01442 851 228) in Aldbury which serves lunch till 2.30pm daily. Alternative options include the Town Farm Tea Rooms in the village, or the tea kiosk at the Ashridge Visitors Centre: see Tea below

If you are Reversing the walk from Ivinghoe Beacon, there are directions in the text as to how to reach Albury for tea or lunch

The Ashridge Estate Visitors Centre (tel 01442 851227)at the Bridgewater Monument has a tea kiosk with inside and outside seating, open until 5pm March to October (8pm on Wednesdays) and until 4pm in winter. The kiosk is closed two weeks either side of Christmas.

Alternatively about 20 minutes further on in the village of Aldbury, the Town Farm Tea Rooms offers cream teas in a cosy room that feels like (and in fact is) the front room of a normal cottage. It is open year round until "about 5.30". The village also has a shop, Aldbury Village Store that is open until 5.30 pm daily and 7.30pm on Saturday and Wednesdays. The Greyhound Inn (tel 01442 851 228)across the road from the Town Farm Tea Rooms is another possible tea stop and also does lunches.

Berkhamsted High Road has various cafes if finishing the walk there