27 Jul 2024: Wolverton to Bletchley Linear Walk

This was a linear walk from the industrial suburb of Wolverton, SE to Bletchley using a towpath alongside the Grand Union Canal (map), followed by mainly green ways through Milton Keynes alongside Loughton Brook (Milton Keynes) within the Loughton Valley Linear Park, followed by a route through the Tattenhoe Valley Park, followed by some street walking and a return journey by train to Wolverton.

The usual stats:

Event led by Pascal.
Attendance: 4 people.
Distance: 9.06 miles (14.6 km).
Altitude per GPS: low 393ft (119.8m), high 524ft (159.7m), climb 341ft (103.9m), descent 259ft (78.9m).
Time: start 10:59, end 15:54 (sunset 21:00), lunch 22 minutes, other breaks 12 minutes.
Speed: moving arithmetic average 1.92mph (3.1kph).
Terrain: parkland path, pavement, track.
Weather: good for walking, sunny spells, temperature range between 20°C and 21°C, hot sun, humidity, westerly wind 8.5mph (13.7kph) with no wind chill.
Number of sewage works: 0.
Number of churches: 1.
Number of golf courses: 0.

The grand design of Milton Keynes extended lessons from the earlier generation of New Towns, to return closer to the concept of a garden city, but with the replacement of a “town centre” with a “commercial district”, thus creating a partially de-centralised town plan.

In addition, in common with other new towns, Milton Keynes built away from flood plains. For Milton Keynes, this meant avoiding the flood plain running alongside Loughon Brook. Combined with the de-centralised suburban environment, the designers needed to ensure sufficient capacity to slow down water in the event of flooding, meaning the deployment of water meadows (the most obvious examples being the series of fields at the northern end of the Loughton Valley Linear Park) and landscaping (to channel water flow).

The result of the design made it possible for our walk to use a green way between two suburban points. Throughout most of the walk in the green way, it was difficult to remember that we were walking through the middle of a city. Only the occasional sound of road traffic broke the spell.

Points of interest included:

a secret garden in Wolverton. The parish council refers briefly to the secret garden in its parish history. Here is a blogger describing it. This included a work of public art, “Meet the Ancestors”: two people watching television, with the faces of other people buried in the “mat” between the television and the viewers.
a canal bridge. The Grand Union canal uses a bridge to cross over V6 Grafton Street.
a replica layout of the Bancroft Roman Villa. The original villa is thought to have been built in 100 AD, with improvements over the years up to 340 AD.
concrete cows. Moo.
Bradwell Abbey, a Scheduled Ancient Monument (no. 19062 1009540). Nationally it is significant because it contains the greater part of the medieval precinct of a priory, a relatively unusual survival, with a rare standing building. Bradwell Abbey House, next to the Scheduled Ancient Monument, is a grade II listed building.
Teardrop Lakes, Loughton Valley Park. This was our lunch spot and enabled us to sit at a slight altitude relative to the lakes, enjoying a middle-distance view, while chowing on sandwiches.
An ice cream from the Dinosaur Valley Crazy Golf centre, Furzton Lake. This was also the location of a public work of art, “Triple Head Star”. And rather a handsome bouncer on the door of the restaurant, The Italian Sul Lago.
The National Bowl. An event was taking place, so our route was barricaded. We needed to use Watling Street instead. How historic! It was nicely upgraded to V4 Watling Street, a modern suburban street, which is more-or-less dead straight, only modernised with countless roundabouts. Might the Romans be impressed?
The A421 H8 Standing Way was the threshold that ended the green way and started the suburban streets into deepest Bletchley. Bletchley was “London overspill” development in the years preceding the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. The architecture of the residential buildings is a mixture of styles – in essence, whatever works with the budget we’ve got to build ‘em – as befits the rushed nature of an overspill suburb.