St Albans to Harpenden 16 May, 2026

This walk was initially intended to be a circular stroll round the city of St Albans. However  on the recce the new route we tried  turned out to have too much main road and hard surface walking – and one of the leaders  baulked at the notion of proceeding down the Residents Only forbidden path ; so we diverted to Harpenden without a recce of the last couple of miles .

Eleven walkers set off down the pleasant, leafy, disused railway from St Albans to Hatfield which largely follows the course of the River Ver – one of England’s chalk streams with its unique ecology.

A mere hour and a quarter took us up the hill to the magnificent St Albans Abbey – a veritable palimpsest of English history and ecclesiastical architecture. Mindful that our picnic lunch would be late, we lingered for a substantial coffee and cake break, which also allowed enough time for some of us to explore the cathedral.  

Suitably fortified, we set off down the attractive Fishpool Street with its ancient houses and reached the entry to the Gorehambury Estate with its Roman theatre. No one took advantage of the opportunity to drop out at this point to visit the Roman museum and hypocaust so we all continued along the estate drive turning off to rejoin the Ver after a glimpse of the magnificent Palladium mansion belonging to Viscount Grimston.

Then followed the Walk into the Unknown.  Luckily the leader spotted the almost completely concealed footpath sign and we turned off Beesonend Lane to follow the edge of Harpenden civilisation aided by Janet with the trusty OS red arrow! The arrow took us to the fringes of Harpenden golf course and Common as intended and smoothly onto the station.

This was a good route , shorter and easier than the Nickey Line route we did before, and worth doing again I think.