20 Sep 2015: Hatfield to Langley Lower Green

At last a fine day was forecast and seven of us turned up at the start at Hatfield, including Mark a newcomer.

First stop was to be Ash Valley Golf Course near Much Hadham. Now this is to the north east of Hatfield so we started off by going to Hertford and then along the river/canal towpath to Ware. From there a climb up through the ‘suburbs’ of Ware to get to the high ground to the north of the town. Here onwards it was fairly flat through lovely open countryside, in the sunshine, through Babbs Green, Rush Green and other such rural sounding places. Then onto a road northwards through Much Hadham itself and out into the countryside again where, in a beautiful location, is the golf club. It has an interesting timber clubhouse, which was virtually empty, but it’s plus point for cyclists being that it does breakfast type goodies at a reasonable price. Whilst there, Stuart a cyclist from Stevenage joined us.

On the road to Langley Lower Green

Refreshed we moved on north through Little Hadham and then further on, just before Stocking Pelham, we turned east on a very minor lane for a couple of miles to Maggots End (what a charming old English name!)  Now it was north again on a quiet road that runs up the valley of the river Stort. Following river valleys is nice because they tend to be fairly flat and this one was again in lovely open countryside. Then it was into Clavering, a pleasant village where apparently Jamie Oliver’s parents run (ran?) the village pub. However we had a better destination in mind, namely ‘The Bull’ in Langley Lower Green a few miles further on. This is an old village pub, which stands on the green. Food-wise a speciality of this area is ‘huffers’ which are like enormous (bread) baps. Two of our party were man enough (or foolish enough) to take on these monsters and managed to demolish them together with their fillings. The rest of us were more conventional and well satisfied with the normal pub food provided.

After lunch we decided not to go to Stevenage as planned but to cut across more directly to Dane End where there is another golf club that also caters well for us cyclists. So, having partaken of tea (and cake) we headed back towards the start at Hatfield.

On the way some peeled off towards their homes but those who went back had done about 63 miles in all.

It was generally agreed it had been a perfect day for cycling; warm but not too hot, not much wind and dry with delightful scenery.

peteR 20/09/2015