St Margarets Circular

13 December. Mist produced a cool and atmospheric start to our walk along the Lea navigation to reach Amwell Nature reserve.

Lea or Lee? Both are correct, Lee being most used for administrative reasons rather than geography.

There were no bird experts amongst our group of 13, but plenty at the reserve to ask, some keen enough to be there a few hours later when we passed by again on our return home.

The walk turns North-East to follow a tributary of the river. The leaf covered path provided easy walking to reach a near redundant stile. We took a slightly uphill route across the open grassland to reach Watersplace Farm. An uphill route to the North through some more pleasant woods leads to Morley Hall – no links to our Morley.

There are many variations to this part of the walk, which in the past has been led for more than 12 miles. Not for us, and in fact the chosen loop before reaching the pub proved a little short in that we had to wait five minutes for the Chequers Inn to open.

Always hospitable, the pub welcomed us and all were happy for a longer rest than usual. We agreed that a total of nine miles was the right length on a short December day.

The sun was getting low on our return leg, again following the stream across fields, past Marnocks farm, then downhill to again reach Watersplace farm. A slightly different route provided some final views of the Hertfordshire countryside before getting back to the Amwell reserve and the last stretch of towpath. Tony – with thanks to Christine M for photos.