Extra Walk 210 Sawbridgeworth to Bishops Stortford
Length: 23.7km (14.7 miles), or 16.1km (10 miles) Toughness: 5/10 or 2/10
09:57 Cambridge train from Liverpool Street (Tottenham Hale 10:10) arriving at Sawbridgeworth at 10:38.
Return trains from Bishops Stortford to Liverpool Street are at xx:09 and xx:39 (journey time 37 minutes) or at xx:00 and xx:28 (journey time 46 minutes). Buy a day return to Bishops Stortford.
This walk through the gently rolling countryside of fields, woods and waterways in East Hertfordshire visits the scenic Ash valley and finishes along the Stort navigation past a couple of nature reserves. A major attraction on the walk is the chance to visit the Henry Moore Sculpture Park, Studios and House at Perry Green, where the early lunch pub is situated, 4.7 miles into the walk.
A combination of four shortcuts (one of which cuts 3.5 miles off the walk length) allows the walk to be shortened to 10 miles, which may be useful if you want to spend time at the Sculpture Park. You’ll miss some attractive parts of the walk by doing this, though.
The recommended lunch pub is the Bull Inn (01279 842668) in Much Hadham, located 6.7 miles into the full walk, with a cafe nearby. There are lots of tea options in Bishops Stortford.
You will need to download the Walk Directions.
History
This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.
| Date | # | Post |
|---|---|---|
| Sun, | 9 |
|
| Sun, |
|
|
| Sat, | 4 | Sawbridgeworth to Bishop's Stortford |
| Sat, | 5 | Sawbridgeworth to Bishop's Stortford |
The new Henry Moore minimalist designed visitor centre is quite splendid and definitely worth a visit. We all opted for the longer walk and good quality roasts were consumed at the Bull. On the return leg rather than do a right, left, left, circuitous route I suggested a more straightforward path which continued on the Hertfordshire Way only to find that at the 2nd field crossing we had to hack our way across a ploughed field to reach our onward route ; perhaps the reason the longer route was chosen anyway?
Near the end of the walk I became detached from the others as I chose the slightly longer route back, thinking the others were following but they chose the shorter option so I don't know if they found a decent tea place. An excellent day out in stimulating company with the tarmac count just on the right side of acceptable. Hope the newcomers enjoyed their day out and are inspired to come on other walks.