Today we went out on another walk from the Walks section of The Ver Valley Society website – this time Walk 7: The Watermeadow Walk. The link to the leaflet for this walk is here.

Before I talk about the walk and share photos I’m going to highlight at the start that we picked this walk because we thought it was about 3.5miles long, and two hours, but we didn’t read ahead and the guide tells you to take the train back from Park Street in to St Albans Abbey. The train wasn’t running so we walked back and ended up walking 6 miles and 3 hours.

This is the route the walk should take. We walked back along the roads rather than took the train for the last section.

We started at the St Albans Clock Tower. Fergus was ready to go, as you can see in the picture. He didn’t know how long it would actually take…

From the clock tower you head along High Street then turn down Holywell Hill.

There’s some really interesting buildings and history on Holywell Hill. My dad pointed out these two. Both buildings are associated with Samuel Ryder, who was a successful local businessman, and former St Albans Mayor, who became an enthusiastic golfer later in his life, and was responsible for establishing the Ryder Cup golf tournament played between Europe and the USA. The building on the left was his offices while the one on the right was a seed hall. There’s a good, quick to read article here about him.

• 

• 

It feels like the walk along the River Ver really starts when you find the entry to the river walk at the bottom of Holywell Hill. We’ve walked down in that area lots of times before and I hadn’t noticed it.

It’s cool how a moment ago you were next to a busy road filled with cars and the next- a pathway surrounded by nature. We followed the river down the pathway until we took a turn onto a thin bridge which we ran on. It lead us into a pathway where you have to be careful not to sting yourself, luckily none of us did!

• 

• 

After about 10 mins or so we saw a clearing where there was a pole to tell you the directions. It was first of many we would soon see to help to assure us that we were going the right way. They even had circles helping you with the ver valley walk we were doing.

We took a little detour to a ruins of a grand building. After doing some research, I found out that it used to be a nunnery, dating back to 1140. The current ruins are what is left of the manor house of a later owner, Sir Richard Lee, who was a member of King Henry VIII’s court. As we looked around we found that someone had placed pictures of different Owls and you had to guess what type of owl they were. I think someone might have been organising a trail for a birthday party.

• 

• 

All along the river there were sets of stairs leading down towards the water. Next time we definitely need to remember to bring a towel so that we can dip our feet in – cooling!

We were led into a large field where cows sometimes grazed. Unfortunately, there was lots of dung everywhere so we had to be careful. When we got to the end we found a problem: the pathway was filled with water. We weren’t the only ones there though and a group of people were already placing big sticks across which we would balance on. It was a bit wobbly but at most we only got a few splashes on us – phew! – but then daddy got some dung on his shoe – typical.

• 

• 

We hadn’t read ahead and once we got out of the field we recognised we had to go onto a train but when we went to get there, DISASTER it was closed – NOOOOOOOO!! We had to walk an extra 2miles or so, it was kind of painful for the three of us.

We rejoined the walk in Verulam Park. We were reaching the final stretch, but Fergus was getting tired, so he got onto my shoulders while I walked up to the town.

Eventually, Fergus got too heavy so I had to lift him off. We were really close to town and finishing the tiring journey. I couldn’t wait but had to take a picture for this so it’s up there.

(Note: Sorry, about the bad pic)

This is the last sight on the walk. It’s called Waxhouse Gate and is a little alley that leads you back in to town.

As a treat for our hard work, we were allowed a milkshake from shaken cow. I chose this strawberry one which was delish! It was pretty cold and I had a really cold brain freeze.

Hope you liked it.

The link is down below shows the walk, and the ups and downs, if you want to check the walk out.

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