Ashwell Amble - Thursday 2nd April 2015

Map of route word (672KB) pdf (447KB).

My gps clocked 15.3 miles, 20 on walk. Welcome to Nichola from Ramblers and Mafe from London group. Friends of Friendless Churches, saw first Brimstone butterfly of year, Jim told us of interesting migration of Monarch butterfly, sunny, legs out for the afternoon. Thank you to the Rose and Crown for letting us eat our sarnies in the garden. We didn't see a Tree Creeper...I forgot to mention that we saw one on the last Thursday walk.

Info from Phil.......

Arbury Banks
Scheduled ancient monument site of a hill fort, believed to have been constructed either late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. We passed Arbury Banks on a previous BBN walk I did a while back but I doubt many people will remember the details from then!.

http://www.hertsdirect.org/services/envplan/archaeology/archsites/arburybanks/

Hinxworth Place
A medieval manor house. Now the home and workplace of the sculptor John W Mills - a number of his works are displayed in the grounds. The house is also reputedly haunted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinxworth_Place

1. The walk will be about 16 miles (10 pre-lunch and 6 afterwards) over generally good tracks/paths and with no significant hills. But if anyone wants something slightly shorter, there is a 2-mile loop just before the lunch stop in Ashwell which can be missed out – from where the loop starts, there’s a path straight into the village so anyone opting to take that can have an extra 40 minutes for lunch and reduce the walk distance to 14 miles.

2. The ‘official’ lunch stop point will be the Rose & Crown pub in Ashwell which is OK with people eating sandwiches in their garden (or the smoker’s shelter if wet) provided most buy a drink of some sort. But real ale aficionados may want to venture further along the village to the Bushel & Strike (at least, that’s where DFH and M headed last time I led a walk through Ashwell!).