Premier Hertfordshire countryside where the Queen Mother spent much of her childhood, an elegant small church where she was baptised and woods abounding with deer, are visited on this walk. This is prime shooting territory and the path takes us over arable land and the sheltered Hitch Wood to a view over Hitchin and Stevenage. The ruins of Minsden Chapel is past and likely marks the spot where a medieval village once stood. Then past the Stagenhoe Estate, where Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote The Mikado, down to the clear streams of the Mimram River. The watercress farm is in clear view in all its pure green as we enter the main street of Whitwell. Whitwell watercress has been sold in London markets since the 18th Century. The old houses echo the activities of yesteryear with a mill, brewery, tannery and straw plaiting school. Finally the return takes us past the horse pastures of The Bury, where a famous woodland garden of Edward Gilbert is sometimes open to the public, then past a grand walled vegetable garden and a house with arched windows up a tree-lined path to the church where we began the day.

England - Hertfordshire - Countryside

View a road map to the starting point of this walk.