A few weeks ago we took a walk along Ver Valley Walk 5, which we found in the Walks section of The Ver Valley Society website. This link to the leaflet for this specific walk is here. It’s a very good way to use your time and to see all the beautiful scenery throughout the area around St Albans.

Here’s the route:

We decided to start off from the Roman Museum.

From there we went along St Michael’s on to Branch Road. As you go along through St Michael’s it is worth looking at large piece of Puddingstone in front of the mill. Puddlestone is a mix of different stones, normally rounded stones held together some sort of sandy or chalky material. It is rare in the UK, almost exclusively found in Hertfordshire. There’s lots of interesting stories about it on wikipedia through the link below.

At the end of Branch road we headed down towards Oysterfields and headed up towards Batchwood golf course and the bridleway right-of-way that takes you along the side of the field up towards Childwickbury. As you walk up this way you get great views back towards St Albans and over the Abbey.

This section of the path is a lovely area of the walk. There are lots of different options for where you can go. We sometimes go into Batch Wood, sometimes back around the golf course, but on this walk, you continue along a footpath at the edge of Ladies Grove Wood, which leads you to estate drive beside Childwickbury Manor and Childwick Green.

Whenever we go past Childwickbury Manor my dad always mentions that a famous director called Stanley Kubrick lived and directed movies there. So when I got home I found this really interesting article about it in the Herts Advertiser which tells you that some famous films including Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut were produced there.

The first part of this route is good to go cycling along. This photo of Childwickbury Green is from another cycling outing as I forgot to take a picture when we went walking. On a cycle we sometimes head onward to Harpenden.

After Childwickbury you turn left along the Harpenden Road (A1081) before crossing to join a footpath to Ayres End Lane.

Take the track behind the cottages to East Common; turn left, pass Barnville Cricket Club and the Three Horseshoes Pub on The Common.

At this point of the walk you walk across Harpenden Golf Club. It looks like a really fun course to play on.

You should find a marker to tell you when to cross over and head towards Harpenden Road and down toward Redbourn. You re-cross the Harpenden Road to Beesonend Lane.

This is quite a long stretch of the walk, down a quiet country road (although I say that when the photo shows us just as a car is coming), surrounded by fields. You follow this road all the way down towards Redbournbury Mill and the Ford just before it.

This area was the highlight of the walk! There’s a lovely area of river by the mill where you can go paddling. It was so refreshing on a hot day!

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Take a little detour to visit the Mill, which is a working museum and bakery. It was closed the day we went but we could see the bakery readying bags of flour to take to customers.

After Redbournbury Mill you double back to the ford and begin the home straight back to St Albans. You start with this big open stretch of path beside a big meadow. Me and my brothers raced across the meadow to see who could get to the end first.

You passed some lovely houses like this one. They were all really big and one of them even had a little pond with a duck house- there was a duckling inside it.

(Gorhambury is closed at the moment so we didn’t do this section of the walk – although we’ve walked and cycled in Gorhambury many times before, so the next section of the walk is how to complete the walk is intended, not what we managed to do. We finished the walk by coming back along Redbourn Road. This is another option generally as Gorehambury is always a ‘permissive path’, meaning it is only accessible with permission, which in practice means it’s only open certain times. The path is normally open 8am – 6pm. I’ve taken the section following from the RiverVer.co.uk description of the walk.)

“Passing the Works (former chalk-pit) the footpath leads to the Estate drive on the approach to Shafford Farm and Mill. Watch out for Grey Wagtails that build their nests under bridges. Cross the Redbourn Road to the footpath opposite to enter the Gorhambury Estate.”

“Follow the millstream until the site of Pre Mill is reached, then take the estate road over the river and, at a T-junction, turn left.
Look out for birds of prey, such as Red Kite and Buzzard – also listen out for deep ‘cronk’ call of Raven. There are fine views of the Abbey along the drive, before the Roman Theatre. Cross Bluehouse Hill via the crossing and walk through St Michael’s churchyard to return to Verulamium Museum.”

It was fun walk to do and all the landmarks were very cool. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to go for a long walk.

You can also download a PDF description of the route here: