Category: Bedfordshire
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Tree Routes
If a tree falls in Ashridge Forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Shaking myself out of the winter slumber, I headed into Ashridge during the recent unseasonably warm weather. The forest was full with noisy life shaking off a winter slumber. The ambient light is washed out…
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Breaking the Bias
The Trail inspires artists, writers, and historians, who between them, enable us to better interpret the collective story and appreciate this wonderful national asset.
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A Snowdrop of Spring
Not really spring, but that testing time in-between winter and spring when we dare to hope that warm, sunshine-filled days are not far away. February is the month when we see a smorgasbord of emerging colour; yellow aconites and daffodils, purple crocuses and best of all, clumps of white snowdrops. They can be found across…
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Shapeshifters
Like sardines, starlings are iridescent, shapeshifting units. These seasonal aerial displays, or murmurations are just like the vast migrating families of fish.
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Shillington Village
An unassuming county, Bedfordshire and the northern Chilterns with their intriguing place names, unusual geology and landscape history, is worth your time.
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The Chilterns at Halloween
The Chilterns has its fair share of ghosts; headless horsemen, a ghost who packs guests’ suitcases, others who like a drink at the bar, another who will pinch your bum, green men, shadowy figures loitering in places unexpected, a mummified hand, a request for help from a disembodied voice are all enough to get you…
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The castle that time forgot
Seen mostly from Chilterns commuter trains, I expect Berkhamsted castle is one of those landmarks that is no longer noticed. It has disappeared into the landscape. My straw pole revealed a distant lack of awareness when asked when was the last time they visited Berkhamsted castle? “Not for ages”“Is that the one near the station..?”“I…
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Sharpenhoe Clappers: what’s in a name?
Anonymous initials, an evocative place name and the ghost of a Celtic tribal chief? It seems fitting that such a place, whilst no longer occupied, still draws visitors who wish also to leave their mark, and a former first century tribal chieftain reputedly still there, marking his presence from the sky.