PURWELL VALLEY 'RIVER WALK'
The Purwell 'Ring of Springs' is the quintessential originating component for the start of the rivers' Hiz and Purwell.
All the springs comprising the 'ring of springs' can be accessed on foot and the route from one to another makes a most delightful and interesting ramble.
This part of my blog does not illucidate the niceties of navigating from spring to spring but highlights a walk that I have been personally involved with developing from Ransome's Rec. through to Iclkleford.
As a child ( many, many years ago) I used to walk along the river via this route. However, approximately 30 years ago the council landfilled the space that is now known as Cadwell Lane football pitch and in the process made quite a steep slope right into the river. This covered up the old path and made it very difficult to still walk along the river bank.  As the years have passed this 'corporate vandalising' and intrusion into 'my-space' began to urge me to think about doing something about it.
Having roughly surveyed the route, it seemed to me that it would be 'possible' (over several years) for one person (me) to cut out a path and reinstate the walk that I had enjoyed as a child.
Another motivation for me was, that if someone else took up the challenge and joined the Ickleford section to that in Bedfordshire, then the walk could be continuous from the river source at the Purwell Valley 'Ring of Springs', via the Great Ouse river, all the way to The Wash.
This would form a flatish 'national-walk' for those who perhaps are not capable of navigating the more hilly terrain of some of the other national walks.
The work at the Ransome's Rec. end, through to the first part of Cadwell Lane football field had already been completed by The Hitchin Rivers Society some years ago. Thus, they had set a precedent and a standard that I could emulate. However, as with all countryside footpaths, they need regular maintenance if they are not to get overgrown and revert back to scrubland. So one of my tasks was to 'rediscover' the works of my predecessors and reinstate their section of the 'Riverwalk'.  I was particularly pleased to find the old wooden signposts, as they were situated at Ransome's Rec. as well as Grove Road and Cadwell Lane football field.  Also, in the old spinney near Grove Mill, they had hardcored the base of the path and the wooden edging was still just traceable. This made it much easier to uncover the old path within the denseness of leaf mould compost and  ivy growth that had buried it over the years.
It is my intention to give the readers of this blog a visual experience of the 'riverwalk' by putting in some sequential photographs for the whole route. and commenting upon the walk as we go.
I hope you will appreciate describing the countryside in prose is not as effective as seeing pictures.  However, even this does not compare with getting out and about and walking the route for yourself.