Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2022 Day 17: Cranfield

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do, just as one pleases.

- William Hazlitt, On Going a Journey

27 km (now my ideal distance!)

Following a pancake breakfast in the cafeteria at Marshall Hall, the Cranfield University conference venue where I spent the night, I headed down the road and onto a wide, grassy bridleway to Salford. I passed right in front of the Willowford Hotel, where I could alternatively have spent last night but didn't because it cost twice as much as my room at the university and was only another six kilometres along the way. The hotel looked very nice, but I was glad I had chosen the cheaper and closer option yesterday afternoon, when I arrived in Cranfield all wet and muddy!

A bit more road walking brought me across the M1 and the A21 in one fell swoop, over a single long viaduct, and then into the estate of Wavendon House, now home to a management consultancy firm. I seem to have left behind the land of cows and sheep and entered the land of management! The estate is private property, but a charming footpath winds across it. So charming, in fact, that I missed the turning out of the estate and continued across it as far as the main road into Woburn Sands!

This meant a slight detour, but it was not a problem as the road had a sidewalk and took me to Woburn Sands railway station, where I was able to return to my intended route. I meant to stop in at the local branch of Costa Coffee while I was there, but it was permanently shut - another victim of the pandemic, perhaps? - so I sat down for a break on a bench on the railway station platform instead.

I rejoined the footpath, which crossed the railway line and then continued through a field of horses and across a golf course to the lovely village of Apley Guise.

Crossing the M1

Crossing the railway tracks

Crossing the golf course

Arriving in Aspley Guise

Aspley Guise town square

Black clouds were gathering, so I sat under the little roof in the square in Aspley Guise eating my sandwich, just in case they brought rain. But they didn't, and so I continued on my way through Aspley Guise and over the fields to Woburn.

St. Bernard's Way skirts around the outside of the town of Woburn, but I decided to walk straight through the middle along the main street instead, and I was glad I did because it was a very pretty town, especially with all the Jubilee decorations up. The former church of Woburn is now a tourist information office and heritage museum, and I thought I might pay a visit, but it didn't open until two, so I sat on a bench in the churchyard and took another break instead.

I left behind the town of Woburn and crossed the Woburn Abbey estate on the public footpath through fields that are home to semi-tame herds of deer.

Woburn Abbey was founded as a Cistercian abbey in 1145. In 1547 Henry VIII closed the abbey and gave the property to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford. The Dukes of Bedford demolished the original abbey building and built their house on the site, while retaining the name Abbey. Woburn Abbey was largely rebuilt starting in 1744 by architects Henry Flitcroft and Henry Holland for the 4th Duke of Bedford; it was here that Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, originated the 19th-century British ritual of afternoon tea.

Woburn Abbey is normally open to visitors, at a price, along with its associated safari park, teahouse and gift shop, but it is currently closed for renovations, saving me the dilemma of choosing whether or not to spend time and money visiting the stately home. I simply walked across the deer park, surrounded by curious deer.

That's Woburn Abbey in the distance

After leaving the deer park, I followed a footpath along a track through a long, narrow field which showed signs of the recent presence of cattle, though I could see none - until I came to the opposite end of the field. There they were, standing by the gate; I was straining my eyes trying to see which side of the fence the cattle were on, and realising with dismay that they were on the same side as I was, when a young couple with a small child entered the field through the gate ahead of me. The father actually went over to one of the young bullocks with the little girl in his arms so that she could take a closer look and possibly pet him. "I'm glad you're here," I said to them, as I don't much like walking through herds of cattle on my own!

How now, brown cow!

I crossed a few more fields to come to the A5. Here St. Bernard's Way crossed the road and took another spin through the fields before entering the village of Hockliffe, but I decided to walk along the A5 for three good reasons: 1. Black clouds were looming over again; 2. My motel was on the A5 out of the other end of the town, so I was going to have to walk along it sooner or later anyway ; and 3. It had a sidewalk. I had checked on Google maps street view before booking my motel that there was a sidewalk on the A5 from the town centre to the motel, and it was now apparent to me that the sidewalk was also present at the northern end of town. So I let the lorries whistle past as I proceeded along the sidewalk in the carefree manner of one who knows that a hot bath, a cup of tea and a soft bed await. I made one more stop along the way, to devour two (different) veggie burgers, a side of fries, a mango smoothie, a Malteaser ice cream and a chocolate brownie at the McDonald's by the A5. I don't normally support McDonald's, but surely their efforts to provide vegetarian alternatives deserve to be rewarded? Besides, this Long Walk seems to have given me an appetite for junk food! I purchased a chocolate chip cookie and a blueberry muffin to take back to my motel, and was convinced to stop eating and flee the scene only when a group of unruly preschool boys accompanied by insufficiently severe mothers came in and began the process of trashing the restaurant.