Tring Circular - Day Walk

Cool forest at the start of the walk

I think this is one of the better walks around London. It's a circular walk from Tring, north west of London. We did this walk back over Christmas, there was still some frost on the ground in the morning. But otherwise it was a glorious day, beautiful blue skies the whole day, though still pretty chilly.

From the train station you follow the ridgeway to Ivinghoe Beacon, the ridgeway is one of Britain's oldest roads. It links Avebury (near Stonehenge) with Ivinghoe Beacon and people have been using it for 5000 years. I was thinking Ivinghoe Beacon might be some ancient Roman ruin on a hill, but it's not, you do have to kind of climb up to it at least, at a mighty 233m high. It did have a good view, and there was some memorial on it.

Once you are at Ivinghoe Beacon you then start the Icknield Way, a great name for a walking trail. This is a modern route that tries to follow, as closely as possible, another ancient road. Along this whole first section you are walking along this chalk ridge, which is kind of cool. You are getting great views for this whole morning.

View from the Beacon

The Bridgewater Monument

Along this section there is also meant to be one of the best bluebells woods in the country, that's a big claim in Britain. But since it was December we thought we may as well give it a miss. A reason to come back in spring!

For most of the day we were in lovely sunshine, but there was one weird point, where we entered this dense pine forest, the trees were so close together that it was really dark in there. Quite spooky!

After the spooky forest it was on to Bridgewater monument, this is in the Ashridge Estate. The most famous owner of this estate was the "Canal Duke", Francis the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. He was apparently the builder of the first "true" canal in Britain. He built it to transport his coal from his mines to Manchester. Apparently this canal was such a success it kicked off a mania for canal building. In remembrance of this first canal this monument was built in 1832, it was a pretty massive monument for just the first canal.

How haunted does this forest look?