Pete's Walks - Shortened version of Kensworth-Totternhoe walk (page 3 of 6)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
At a path crossroads I turned right, now forced to use a surfaced path. I'd already felt one or two spots of rain and now it started to rain in earnest. I hurried along to reach a dry spot in the shelter of a tree, where I stopped to put my rain jacket on and put the rain cover over my rucksack. Typically, by the time I'd done this, it had more or less stopped raining. The path turned left, heading towards the hamlet of Sewell. At a gap in the hedge on my left (where another path forked half-left I started to make a detour to look at Maiden Bower, where a large ring of trees surrounds the remains of an Iron Age Hill Fort. Unfortunately it now started to rain quite heavily and I hastily continued on my way again. I stopped again for a few minutes under the shelter of another tree, before continuing again. Happily the rain soon eased off and the skies quickly brightened up. The path was now a hedge-lined track heading downhill. At the foot of the slope I went straight on at a path junction where I could have turned right to go to Sewell. The now broad grassy track led on through an open area with trees to my right and bushes on the left. Somehow I went slightly wrong, because I found myself to the left of the hedge-lined track I should have been on, but there was soon a clear gap in the hedge where I could join the track. I followed it between hedges for several hundred yards until it ended at a path T-junction (by the Totternhoe Lime works, over the hedge in front of me).
The start of the path to Sewell after I turned right from Green Lane
View through the rain back to Dunstable Downs
The path to Sewell
The path continuing from Sewell to Totternhoe
The path continuing from Sewell to Totternhoe
The path continuing from Sewell to Totternhoe
The path continuing from Sewell to Totternhoe
Approaching the end of the path to Totternhoe
I turned right here - there were initially two parallel tracks separated by a hedge, I took the left-hand one. The tracks soon merged, and not long after I turned left along a drive or private road. I soon reached the entrance to the Lime Works on my left (I think it's now closed, a couple of other businesses were advertised here). I turned left along a path next to the entrance, which ran between fences and tall hedges either side - there were three chickens here, which quickly made there way back into the enclosure to my right. When the path turned right, I was surprised to see two guinea fowl on the path ahead of me. They ran along the path in front of me, then just before the path turned left they flew over the fence on the right (I remembered seeing some around here before). The path soon turned right, still between a fence and a hedge.
The path after I turned right
The path after I turned left by the entrance to Totternhoe Lime Works - note the chickens!
Guinea Fowl along the same path, after it turns right
Further along the same path
At the end of the path I turned left along a chalky track. I had to go further along here than I remembered to reach a metal kissing-gate on the right. Really the route continues on along the track to a second such gate on the right, through which a path leads up to the 'motte' of the 'motte and bailey' castle here at Totternhoe Knolls, but today I wanted to spend 30-35 minutes looking for butterflies. I didn't find any Essex Skippers, which I was hoping to see, but there were lots of newly-emerged Brown Argus butterflies, a few Chalkhill Blues and at least one Painted Lady, as well as at least two types of dragonfly.
The path after I turned left, that passes the Totternhoe Knolls nature reserve
Common Darter dragonfly
