(Almost) circular walk around Milton Keynes, 13.9 miles

27 August

Walked with Hai, Matthew and Sara roughly around the route of Heritage Cycle Trail A. The full thing is a 15-mile circular route, though in fact I bowed out slightly before the end, being knackered and it being a hotter day than I find ideally comfortable for walking.

Hai, Matt and I were scheduled to meet at Matt’s house in Willen Park, though I got off the number 7 bus a stop too early (not the first time) so took longer than planned to get to them, so actually met them setting out towards the canal. Both sensibly wearing hats – it was a warm day but I’d managed to leave my sunhat back in Reading. We set out northwards up the canal towpath, meeting up with Sara near Giffard Park. Walked through Linford Manor Park and along the canal to the old railway bridge. Diverged from the Heritage Trail route to follow an alternative route Matt knew, coming out by the Grafton Street Aqueduct. Took a path on the opposite side of the canal from the towpath – I hadn’t even known you could walk up this side – coming out in the Secret Garden at Wolverton. We paused for some photos by this sculpture of an old couple, apparently installed in the garden in 2007.

We walked up into Wolverton and followed McConnell Drive for a fairly dull stretch as far as the H2. Crossed the H2 and walked into Bancroft Park, pausing by the Roman Villa before walking along to the concrete cows, which Hai had particularly wanted to see. We lingered a bit while she attempted to mount one of the larger cows, before giving it up and mounting a calf instead.

Bancroft Roman Villa	Me at the Roman remains

After leaving the cows we passed under the H3 into Bradwell Abbey and followed a path down to Lodge Lake. We stopped in Loughton for a short snack – I think Matt would have happily powered on the whole distance without stopping, but Sara kindly suggested we stop, probably hearing my laboured breathing behind her. From Loughton we walked south-eastwards to Furzton Lake, passing through Shenley Lodge with its collection of interesting houses. Didn’t know anything about the Energy World project before, but perhaps must go for more of a meander around the area. One of the more striking houses we saw is mentioned in this interesting 2014 piece on the architecture of Milton Keynes (which also mentions Wolverton Park).

Hai with a cow	Some cow love
Calf mount	The cows

Hai, me and Sara with a cow

We were only at Furzton Lake quite briefly, but it seems quite pretty. Busy on the day we were there. Stopped for a welcome ice cream/lolly. Made our way back up northwards towards MK Central station, passing the National Bowl - I was dimly aware of this but didn't know much about it, but it seems as though some quite eminent people have played there. By the time we reached the station I'd had enough, so took leave of the others and caught the bus back to Wolverton, leaving them to tramp on through Central MK and Campbell Park back to Willen.

Map of the route:

Here’s the pace vs. elevation graph. There generally isn’t much elevation on a walk around MK, but looks as though we reached a reasonable pace at times. As expected, Matt and Sara were the pace-setters, with Hai and I some way behind for most of the walk, though the front-runners paused periodically to let us catch up. Some people just have to rush everywhere.