Bridleway 5 (The Greensand Ridge Walk)
Distance:
c.1 km. Direction: largely SSW - NNE
Want
to read it north to south?
Bridleway 5 starts by the signpost
at the gap in the hedge under a several hundred-year-old oak tree (TL 214524)
on the north side of Bridleway 4. As the
Greensand Ridge Path it follows the western side of a hedges field boundary for
about 200 metres. Unusually, there are five laburnum trees growing amongst
broom, hawthorn and small oaks. Their hanging, yellow flowers are quite
dramatic in late spring. Beware of their seed pods as the peas are said to be
poisonous.
A small track to the
southeast leads to a smallholding but the bridleway continues north for a
further 300 metres. You can see fenced-in clumps of trees in the pasture to the
west. This parkland belonged to Old Woodbury, a renovated medieval farmhouse on
the ridge-top to the west (TL203528). This used to be known as Woodbury until
the early 19th century when Woodbury Hall was built. It then became
known as Old Woodbury. It was built by 1635 by Sir John Jacob of Bromley,
Middlesex, and said to be “a very pretty
gentleman-like house“. He was a ‘Farmer of the Customs’ in that he
collected the import and export duties from national and international traders
and kept a percentage for his service before handing it over to the King. He
benefited Gamlingay by paying for the construction of the ten almshouses on the
High Street. Old Woodbury is thought to have been built on the site of the 11th
century Tetworth manor house, owned at one time by the Prior of the Knights of
St John of Jerusalem. It was the custom for Norman knights to go on the Crusade
or a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and, before they left, gave their estate to
the church to be managed. The Knights had a preceptory (major centre) at
Shingay in Cambridgeshire. In about 1150, Henry de Constentin, his son Geoffrey
and grandson Elias granted lands in Tetworth to the Cistercian monastery of
Sawtry, near Huntingdon.
An old hollow way about 13
metres wide and almost a metre deep runs northwest down the slope to a deserted
medieval settlement of three house platforms and two enclosures. Another hollow
way, about 2 – 3 metres wide and up to 2.5 metres deep in places runs southwest
through Woodbury Sinks. Over millennia, the constant tread of animals’ hooves
loosened the soil and the ruts left by cartwheels during wet weather created
deep ruts. These formed natural channels for rainwater to wash out the soil to
leave these sunken tracks.
During the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, Edmund, Lord Sheffield, inherited the Woodbury estate including
Gamlingay Heath from the Delve family and lived at times in Gamlingay House, a
large half-timbered country house in Gamlingay Park. In 1591 it was sold to
John Machell, a wealthy London cloth merchant and Justice of the Peace, who
lived at Sutton House, Hackney. Machell's purchase of this extensive and
expensive estate of 1,800-acre Woodbury Manor stretched him financially. He
couldn't raise the money to pay for it. In his attempt to raise the capital he
had to mortgage Sutton House and another estate that he owned at Hinxton, near
Duxford, to Sir James Deane, an East India Company man and money lender. As he
was not able to repay the loan with its interest by the agreed time, Deane
deprived him of access to Woodbury and he had to go into hiding. However, it
was claimed by Deane that a party of Machell's followers, led by his second
wife, Ursula, and their son John, armed with swords and halberds, returned to
Woodbury. They entered the property from the rear and seized it from Deane's
men.
Deane took Machel to
court. In the Quarter Sessions there is an account of a fight in the fields of
Woodbury between the headstrong William Machell and others of his father's
party and some of Deane's supporters involving the use of pikestaffs and poles.
One of the group also had a rapier but he claimed not to have used it.
Witnesses corroborated Machel's claim that, in 1599, Deane, in the company of
the under-sheriff of Cambridgeshire and armed with a writ of liberate, seized
the manor house. He forcibly ejected Ursula and her servants who had taken
refuge in some of the upper rooms. Although the precise outcome of the case is
not known, Deane seems to have prevailed and Ursula had to find alternative
accommodation.
In 1606 Machel was
committed for six years to the King's Bench prison in Southwark, as a debtor.
After his release in 1612 he returned to Old Woodbury where he lived until his
eighties. Following his death in 1624 “worn
out with care and grief for his losses“,
his grandson, also called John Machell, sold the estate sometime
before 1640 to Sir John Jacob.
Gamlingay Park was the
adjoining estate to the east in which the ‘Full Moon Gate’ was found. It used
to be a brick letter ‘O’ about 6.5 metres high with a glass window inside. Dick
Turpin, the highwayman, is claimed to have jumped through it on Black Bess, his
horse, to escape those chasing him after a robbery. Some documents suggest it
was built as a folly in 1712 by Sir George Downing, one time resident of
Gamlingay House. A local story has it that his eccentricty included building a
brick wall making up the seven ;etters of his surname and only the O survived.
As Downing lived from 1624 – 1684 this theory has been discounted. Others
suggest that Sir John Jacob had the wall built to commemorate his centenary in the reign of Charles I, and
that it contained the number “100”. It was a local landmark until early in the
20th century when the upper arc eventually collapsed. Local people found it a
romantic spot on warm, moonlit evenings. A more recent explanation is that it
was a lunette – an over two-metre wide circular window at the end of an avenue of trees through
which the bright moonlit sky would appear on a dark evening as a huge full
moon. Like Gamlingay House, the only
evidence of it today is the pillars hidden in undergrowth in a hawthorn
hedge.
Downing was a
Parliamentarian during the Civil War and acted as Oliver Cromwell’s
scout-master (chief spy) in Scotland from 1650 – 1657 for which he was paid
£365 a year as well as £300 as a teller of the exchequer. He
was then appointed resident at The Hague, to try to unite the Protestant
European powers, to mediate between Portugal and Holland and between Sweden and
Denmark, to defend the interests of the English traders against the Dutch, and
to inform the government concerning the movements of the exiled royalists.
Despite his background, Charles II rewarded him for his diplomatic skills with a knighthood in May
1660. He was also given land next to St James’ Park, London, subsequently named
Downing Street. During his time in office he amassed enormous wealth. He died
in Gamlingay House in 1684. Downing College, Cambridge, was named after his
grandson, George Downing (1684-1749), the
third baronet. More details of the Downings can be found in the account of Footpath 8.
Nathaniel Richmond, a
landscape gardener and contemporary of ‘Capability’ Brown, landscaped the
Woodbury grounds between 1760 and 1767. There was an informal park, a separate
and distinct walled garden and a serpentine belt of bushes and occasional
clumps of shrubs. The owner of Woodbury estate at that time was George Lane
Parker (1724 – 1791), a Colonel in George III’s army. It had been in his
family’s possession since his grandfather bought it in the late-17th
century. Ralph Lane was a ‘Turkey
Merchant’, not the kind that fatten birds for the Christmas market, but a silk
and textile trader with Turkey and the Middle East. Richmond was working
between 1764 – 68 on William Pym’s Hasells Hall estate a few kilometres down
the Greensand Ridge towards Sandy. He would have been seen riding his horse
along the same route as the Greensand Ridge Walk.
The bridleway follows the
north-western boundary of a barley field for about 300 metres. Ahead of you is
a young sweet chestnut growing beside the field gate in the fence (TL 217528).
Once through it, the path crosses the road to Old Woodbury and continues
through the next gate northeast for about 100 metres across the grass towards a
copse. There’s evidence of mole and rabbit activity on both side of the path.
Follow the east side of the fence for about 100 metres until you come to the
cattle grid on the access road to Tetworth Hall. There’s a fence post with a
sign saying ‘Warning – Electric Fence’ but there is no evidence of one. The
road forms part of the county boundary between Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire and Bridleway 3..
There have been a variety
of spellings for Tetworth. They include the 12th century Tethewurda
and the 13th century Tetteworth and Tettesworthe. It is claimed to
have derived from the Old English Tettan-wor, meaning “Tetta's enclosure or
farm.” Who Tetta was is not known and it is uncertain whether he, if it was a
he, lived on the site of Green Man Farm, Tetworth Hall or the moated Valley
Farm at the bottom of the ridge.
Tetworth Hall was one of a
number of large properties built during the first half of the 18th
century on the top of the ridge — the others being Everton House, Woodbury Hall
and Hasells Hall in this area. Further west there were Ickwell Bury, Wrest
Park, Ampthill Park and Woburn Abbey. Tetworth Hall is a red brick, two-storey
Queen Anne mansion with a prospect over the lower Ivel valley to the northwest.
Local carstone has been used for dressing. This is a type of sandstone from the
quarries along the face of the Greensand Ridge near Sandy. The house has
basements, attics and an unusual tiled and hipped roof. Scratched on two bricks
immediately to the west of the back door are the initials and date ‘J P Esqr
1710’ and ‘T R 1710’. The house was built that year for John Pedley, the MP for
Huntingdonshire between 1706 and 1708. The Pedley family had been landowners
here since 1653. James Pedley Junior of Tetworth died in 1714 and William
Astell, one of the directors of the South Sea Company of London, bought the
southern part of the estate. The South Sea Bubble burst in 1720 following
financial scandals. He and his descendants made their fortune from importing
tea and other products from India and the Far East.
James Pedley’s heir died
in 1722, also without a male heir. As a result the Pedley family line in
Tetworth died out in 1726. It then was owned by Edward Harley, the 2nd Earl of
Oxford, a collector and patron of letters and in 1740 it was owned by Philip
Yorke, the 1st Earl of Hardwicke and Lord Chancellor. Stanhope Pedley, one of
James’ relatives, acquired the estate in 1759 and kept it until he died in
1802. His wife, Mary owned it until her death in 1823. The coat of arms over
the front door is of Pedley impaling Foley, alluding to the marriage into the
Foley family of Essex. The estate is thought to have then descended from the
Pedleys to the Foleys. Henry Foley was the landowner in 1829. Charles Duncombe,
first Lord Feversham, subsequently purchased it from the owner of nearby
Waresley Park. One of his descendants rented it to one of the members of the
Orlebar family, Bedfordshire merchants thought to be from Hinwick Hall.
Augustus Orlebar was born
in Willington Vicarage, Bedfordshire, on April 28th 1860. He studied
at Eton and Worcester College, Oxford where he got a 1st class
degree in Classics. He won the Varsity half-mile and rowed for the college. He
became a VI Form tutor at Radley and Wellington Colleges between 1884 and 1891,
travelled a lot but settled at Tetworth Hall after he married Hester Mary
Knowles in 1895. He farmed 35 acres and was very sporty, engaging in
motorcycling, shooting and amateur photography. He became the chairman of the
Education Committee, a member of Caxton Rural District Council and Board of
Guardians, a JP and was president of the Gamlingay Conservative Association. He
was churchwarden of St Mary’s Church, Gamlingay from 1912 until his death in
1918. He left a son and three daughters. Augustus Orlebar was leader of the RAF
team that won the Schneider air trophy for Britain in 1929. He became an
Air-Vice- Marshal. Dorothy, one of his three daughters, started the Guides in
Gamlingay in 1920 and worked with them and the Brownies. She was Brown Owl
during the Second World War and became Divisional Commissioner in the 1960s and
eventually Division President. She died in 1988 and a window in St Mary’s
church in Gamlingay is dedicated to her as well as a room at the Cambridgeshire
Pack Holiday House
In the late-1930s the Hall
was rented to Leonard Bower, but he had to move out when it was requisitioned
during the Second World War. What it
was used for is not known for certain. Certainly, troops were stationed in the
grounds who guarded Italian and German prisoners-of-war. Some outbuildings
still have their graffiti on the wall.
Whether there was a direct link with the secret operation going on down
the hill on Tempsford Airfield has not come to light. Local gossip had it that
there must have been spies living there as sometimes lights were seen in the
upstairs windows.
Peter Crossman of the
Watney Mann (?) brewing chain bought the whole estate in 1962. Lady Crossman
still lives there. The gardens are open to the public on two Sundays each
summer as part of the Open Gardens Scheme. Posters advertising it appear
several weeks beforehand. The wooded
slope has been landscaped with pools, ferns, and shady pathways amongst
rhododendrons, magnolias, azaleas and a wide variety of fine trees in a large
woodland garden and bog garden. The microclimate in the shaded woodland
provides perfect habitat for some beautiful plants – well worth a visit.
The hedges, fences and
walls that you see today would not have been in evidence a few centuries ago.
The grassland on the ridge top was largely used for sheep grazing. Woods,
bushes and scrub dominated the scarp slope and the valley floor below the
ridge. Wild flowers abounded. Locals could use the woods for collecting
windfalls, fruit, mushrooms, nuts and any game they might catch. Great tracts
of Everton and Sandy Heath were uncultivated and were mainly used by the landed
gentry for shooting duck, snipe, partridges and bitterns.
The agricultural land that
you see on the top of the hill today was originally infertile, sandy heath.
Over the millennia rainwater leached out the iron and other minerals in the
sandstone which crystallised as a hard pan along the water table. As the water
level fluctuated over the years a number of iron pans built up which led to
poor drainage. Several developments during the Agricultural and Industrial
Revolutions in the 18th and 19th century allowed this land to be brought under
cultivation. They were the deep, cast-iron ploughshare, the steam engine and
the coming of the railway.
A powerful steam plough
could break up the iron pan and allow the soil water to drain better. To improve the mineral content of the soil,
the railway companies provided free freight of horse manure collected from the
streets of London and other towns and cities. This allowed farmers to add cart
after cartload to their fields. From the second half of the 19th
century, artificial chemical fertilisers were used to bring much of this heath
land under cultivation.
Where the road turns
northwest towards Tetworth Hall you can see a field gate in the fence in front
(TL 218529). Go through it and walk past the huge, almost dead sweet chestnut
tree. It is said to be about three-hundred years old.. Its bole is about four
metres wide. Although the tree trunk has had most of its bark nibbled off by animals,
one branch is still prolific. The hollow remains of another, about two metres
wide, can be seen nearby. There was a
fashion for such trees during the 18th and early 19th
century following British military and naval expeditions in the Mediterranean
against France and Spain.
There used to be five sand
pits dug into this part of Gamlingay Great Heath. In the paddock to the east is one used as one of many obstacles
for horse riders. The road is also Bridleway 3
that takes you northwest towards Tetworth Hall (TL 219530) down the ridge past
the medieval moated house of Valley Farm towards the Roman Road, across the
northern perimeter of Tempsford Airfield,
past Cold Arbour Farm to
Tempsford. This was part of the ancient trackway from Gamlingay to
Bedford, crossing the Great North Road and River Ivel at Tempsford. Click on
the link to read about a World War Two air crash that destroyed some estate
cottages one Sunday afternoon.
Bridleway 5 follows the
track northeast. In the copse on the corner is another overgrown sand pit. A few hundred metres
down the tree-lined drive, you pass Dell’s Cottage (TL 219529), another small,
late 17th or early 18th century timber-framed estate
cottage with a thatched roof and well-kept garden created in another disused
sand pit. Its chimney breast occupies about half the width of the gable end. As
you follow the track you can spot numerous beehives in two small plantations by
the roadside.
At the corner you
pass Holly Cottage (TL 222532), an attractive tiled white brick late-18th
century estate cottage with an ornate chimney and porch. It stands at about 63
metres above sea level. A field gate at the corner of the track takes you into a
cow pasture. Depending upon the time of year there might be a herd of cattle.
They can be quite off-putting when they follow you closely. The route is close
to but not actually on the edge of the Greensand Ridge. It is a few hundred
metres away to the northwest on private property behind Tetworth Hall. You can
get glimpses behind you to the north over the rolling Cambridgeshire
countryside and westwards across the Ivel valley.
Just as you enter the
field you can see another disused sand pit, part of an obstacle course for
horse-riders, Many of the fences along this part of the path have jumps over
them. To the east you can see the green barns and red-bricked buildings of
Green Man Farm (TL 225530) in Gamlingay Cinques (sometimes spelt Sinks). During
the 19th century it was very common for farmers to brew their own beer and
provide it free to their agricultural labourers, with extra quantities at
harvest time. This explains why the farm was once used as a public house. Its
connection with the ancient stories of the green man is not certain. He is a
pre-Christian symbol found carved into the stone and wood of pagan temples and
graves and used in medieval churches and cathedrals across an area stretching
from Ireland in the west to Russia in the east. During Victorian times it was
an architectural motif. Although it is thought of an ancient Celtic symbol, its
origins and original meaning are shrouded in mystery. Aerial photographs of the
ridge show evidence of prehistoric settlement with a number of hut circles. The
ridge top was used as a trackway as the lighter sandy soils supported less
trees than the poorly drained valley bottoms so visibility was greater.
Hardwick Arms
Follow
the uneven footpath alongside the fence, and, just before the end of the field,
you pass a 1.5 metre high tree stump of a diseased elm. It was one of numerous
elms cut down in the 1970s following an outbreak of Dutch Elm disease. Horses’
hooves and burrowing rabbits make the route slightly awkward, especially in wet
weather.
Bridleway 5 finishes at a
small lay-by on the west side of the road from Gamlingay Cinques to St Neots on
the top of Tetworth Hill (TL 225522). There is a 62 metre spot height marked on
the map showing that you are on the crown of the hill. There is enough room for
you to park your car but as there is a field gate to a cow pasture it would be
best to arrange to be picked up there. However, there is a small car
park (TL 227528) in the centre of Gamlingay Cinques, the small hamlet by the
crossroads. The Greensand Ridge Walk continues into Gamlingay where you can get
refreshments at The Hardwick Arms Public House, the Cock or the
Wheatsheaf. You can walk southeast
through Gamlingay Cinques or use Footpath
9 and Footpath 8.