Battlers Green – Radlett Walk – 17.06.2012

Our brusque walk was take us along some of the public footpaths of Radlett. We were too follow “Public Footpath 17”, I will admit that this not a very exciting title unlike the trails that I have walked before such as “Offas Dyke”, “The West Highland Way” or indeed the troublesome “London Loop”, but these little footpaths are still just as attractive to walk along :-)!

The trail took us past “Home Farm” and out into open fields. The fields were turning from various shades of green to a pale yellow, I presume that this was a beautiful Cornfield we were now walking past. I spotted a lonesome poppy swaying in the gentle breeze, I could not help admiring how beautiful the red petals were :-). The path was quite easy to negotiate despite being through a field, I am unsure if it had been raining whether the route would have been so easy to walk along. We came across narrower track along our way, “Public Footpath 31”, which thought we may investigate later. We walked on onwards and the path eventually widened and became a public bridleway.

From 2012 – 17.06.2012 – Battlers Green Walk

Whilst we were walking the track, I did notice yet another footpath sign saying “Walks Around Radlett”, which we may return to and try at some point. I think that this particular path may take us to “Moses Dell”. Unfortunately I am unable trace much information about this very curious name! Perhaps when we return I can find out more. The path then led us out into the road “Watling Street”. “Watling Street” was a originally created by the ancient Britons, it was the Romans paved and made the route more direct. Although the road was primarily a route from London to Dover, the Street’s entire course went from Dover to Wroxeter in Shropshire! It is nice to know that the road that was built in times gone past is still in use today 🙂

As we had not quite decided our route from here on in, we checked the footpath signs and we noted a signpost for the “Hertfordshire Way”. The way is about 194 miles in length and this is one walk that I will need to take as a challenge at some point! We followed the road until we found the next footpath, which was signposted towards the “Aldenham Road” or to “Butterfly Lane”. However we decided not to venture down either path. I did begin to imagine that “Butterfly lane” gained it’s name due to the enormous amount of beautiful butterflies that had once been spotted there. No such luck! In fact the lane was created by a Henry Gibbs, who once owned the land in the 19th Century, and created both road Butterfly Lane along with the Aldenham Road to mark the boundaries of the Aldenham Estate. He also built the “Battleaxes” pub on the junction of the two roads, for his workers, what a lovely man! From all accounts the pub is still there, so it is a shame we did not walk these footpaths then, as we could have stopped for a drink 🙂

As we decided not to follow the path to either road, we turned back up Watling Street. Instead of returning to our original route, we turned off via a kissing gate onto “Public Footpath 31”. This took us once again through the farmers field and eventually took across a stream. It was really nice to see that the path was very well maintained because they had built a concrete bridge across the stream! I am suitably impressed! The trail then took us through a very grassy field, I presume that this field has been left fallow for the year by the farmer? I could not see any signs of any crops in this field, but there was some beautiful white flowers that had grown there instead!

From 2012 – 17.06.2012 – Battlers Green Walk

The footpath eventually led us to a gate, which led us in to what I thought was a well tended Orchard. The path was also looked after in fact it was concrete. As far as I can make out from the map this is “Little Kendals Wood”. I am unsure who looks after it or the history behind this unusual wood, but it is not an orchard as I originally thought. In fact there are many species of trees growing here, such as oak and beech as far as I could tell. However, the way out of the wood was a little confusing as there was no obvious public footpath signs to point out which gate was the correct one to use! In fact we nearly walked into a private garden!! We turned back and by process of elimination we found the correct gate by looking for a sign outside of the wood!

I will admit we also got stuck here as the sign seemed to point us back where we came from, so we were thoroughly confused. Luckily I spotted a marker across the field, so we could cross the field safely to the rejoin the path the other side! It was here we discovered we had covered the path we found much earlier on our walk – nice to know we had investigated a path on the same day we found it! Once we had rejoined our original route we walked back to Battlers Green Farm where we finished our walk for the morning 🙂

Please click on the photo below for the photos for the Sunday Morning Wander –

2012 – 17.06.2012 – Battlers Green Walk

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