Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)

LETJOG PEAK No 8: Dunstable Downs, Bedfordshire (243 metres)

Walk Date: Tuesday 11 April 2023

Blue skies and some spring sunshine this morning – at last!

Today marked the ascent of my eighth County Top, making this walk, at least nominally, the completion of the first sixth of my LETJOG Peaks challenge! I am not fooling myself too much though, as all eight of my conquests to date have been in ‘Lowland England’, and mostly close to home. I am now working on plans for some more distant trips to the West and North of our country, where the summits are higher and the climbs more sustained. Better weather, into the spring season, is of course a factor, and dry mornings like today are most welcome. So, before too long, a number of trips further afield, across the shires, are in prospect!

This seems to be a suitable point to highlight the cause that my challenge is supporting, namely the British Red Cross’ Ukraine Crisis Appeal. I am in regular touch now with Becky and Liz at the British Red Cross, and they are helping to publicise my efforts in supporting their huge and most worthy cause. A couple of folk have already kindly got things going by contributing on my JustGiving page, and others have asked how to make donations. For those interested, my JustGiving page can be accessed by going onto the JustGiving website and entering my name ‘Nick Heath’ in the ‘Search’ box. Alternatively there is a direct link on my Home Page (click on the ‘HOME’ tab above) or via this direct link:

DONATE to the British Red Cross’ UKRAINE CRISIS APPEAL

I am very aware of all the generous contributions that so many friends have made to my previous challenges, so there is no pressure to donate – I am very happy indeed, over the coming weeks and months, for anyone interested just to follow these Blogs of my rambles to the 48 County Tops of England. If however you would like to sponsor my efforts to support the British Red Cross in their humanitarian work in Ukraine then this would of course be very much appreciated. Thank you all!

Today’s circuit, of around 12 miles, took me first on a short exploration around the historic market town of Dunstable, then up the chalk escarpment of the Downs and across farmland to the villages of Kensworth, Holywell and Whipsnade, before ascending the county summit

Dunstable has a long and fascinating history, largely on account of its location at the eastern end of the Chiltern Hills. Palaeolithic and Bronze Age remains indicate prehistoric human occupation in the area, specifically along the West to East route of the Icknield Way, an ancient thoroughfare that lays claim to being ‘the oldest road in Britain’. Running across this highway, north from London, the Romans built Watling Street, and from around AD 40 a settlement appeared at the intersection. The eventual town of ‘Downs Market’ established itself through the Medieval period on these important trading routes, and as well as a transit point Dunstable has become, in more recent centuries, a centre for the printing and, later, the motor vehicle industries. I had the opportunity today to explore a little of the town’s varied past:

Within the built-up area of Dunstable runs this section of the Icknield Way – a fine and unexpected start to my ramble

This sculpture reflects the town’s importance as an ancient centre for trade, representing a Roman amphora – a ubiquitous vessel used for transporting and storing goods including perfume, grain, milk, oils and wine

Long and straight, Dunstable High Street, later a part of the A5, runs along the line of the former Roman Watling Street

This statue, just off the High Street, commemorates ‘Eleanor’s Cross’, one of twelve structures erected by King Edward I in 1290 in memory of his wife Queen Eleanor (of Castile) positioned at the overnight resting places along the route of her funeral cortège from Lincolnshire to London: the original Dunstable stone cross was destroyed in the Civil War of the mid 1600s (although three of the other monuments survive elsewhere)

Dunstable’s Clock Tower is a Millennium project from 1999

Into the countryside, with hawthorn bushes in bloom . . .

. . . ahead of the climb up to the Downs

Looking back, eastwards, over the car factories of Dunstable and Luton

. . . a working chalk extraction site, whose Upper Cretaceous beds yield many rare fossils such as ammonites, as well as providing a key ingredient for cement and brick-making and for use in certain other industrial and agricultural products

The flint-built Church of St Mary, outside of the village of Kensworth, dates in part from the early 1100s

An interesting cart-wheel gate along the way

Now owned and maintained by The National Trust, Whipsnade’s ‘Tree Cathedral’ was planted in the 1930s by Edmund Blyth in memory of fallen comrades in the Great War: the hedges are laid out in the plan of a medieval cathedral, 140 yards long, and the chapels and other spaces include a variety of tree and shrub species, as well as some interesting features and unmowed havens for wildlife

Up onto the top of the Downs, with a view westwards over the fields to Ivinghoe Beacon

At the trig point on Bedfordshire’s Dunstable Downs, the top of the county!

Looking down over the London Gliding Club and north-westwards across the Vale of Aylesbury, towards the Midlands

Five Knolls – a group of round burial barrows dating over 4,000 years to the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods

Returning to the town, my fascinating five-hour ramble ended with a sandwich at the foot of the Downs, just ahead of the forecast afternoon deluge. Getting my timing right will be the making of my LETJOG Peaks project as I plan my longer forays further afield to the higher ground of the English uplands.

I first saw Bedfordshire’s Paul Young perform in concert as front man to the Q-Tips in Harlow Town Park around 1980. After the band split he established a solo career as a ‘blue-eyed soul’ artist, with his debut album ‘No Parlez’ reaching No 1 in the UK album charts in 1983. The song title heading I have used today, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)’ is from that album, and it was, perhaps, a suitable choice of cover song for this Luton-born ‘Hatter’. The original version of the song was performed by its co-writer Marvin Gaye in 1962.

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