With spring emerging, I’m definitely getting into hiking mode. Thankfully, there are still some hikes on meetup.com that I haven’t done before. On a typical British spring weekend that featured one very sunny Saturday and then a temperature drop of 10 degrees the next day, I joined the London Explorers on their hike to the Ivinghoe Beacon following the Ridgeway National Trail and the Chiltern Way.
The Ridgeway National Trail is described as Britain’s oldest road, following a route used for at least 5,000 years by travellers, herdsmen and soldiers. It runs for 135 km starting in the World Heritage Site of Avebury and crossing the chalk ridges of the North Wessex Downs and Chilterns Area of National Beauty (AONB). The Chiltern Way is a circular walking route of 215 km.
Our hike starts in the village of Tring, from where we head straight to the Ridgeway. It’s a steady ascent, which rewards us with increasingly beautiful views across the English countryside. The Ivinghoe Beacon stands at the end of the ridge and we can see the hills above Tring, the vale of Aylesbury, the town of Leighton Buzzard, the grand church of Edlesborough on its mound as well as the white lion of Whipsnade cut into the hillside in the east.
As often is the case, I have met a bunch of very nice people on the hike that I hang out with on the day. Felix from Sweden is keen to find out the backstory of the white lion of Whipsnade and we’re somewhat disappointed to hear that it’s merely promoting the Whipsnade Zoo. However, the lion has been there since 1931 and it’s actually the largest hill figure in Britain at 147 metres long (here’s one for the next pub quiz).
Now that we’ve reached the top of the ridge, our hike takes us down into woodland where we stop for lunch. On the way back to Tring, we pass the Bridgewater Monument, built on the Ashridge estate in 1832 in memory of Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater before we end the day as usually with a pint of beer in a traditional pub in Aldbury with ceilings so low that even I almost hit my head on them.
Click here for a detailed description of the Ivinghoe Beacon Circular Walk
