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Wild daffodils are smaller and paler than
cultivated ones. It makes them seem more vulnerable and all the more precious.
We are lucky to have quite a spread of them in a pretty, woodland setting within
easy distance of St Albans. The daffodils have been there every year that I can
remember. I dare to hope that they will be there for our joy each year about mid
March.
However, there is no need to restrict this walk to the month of March. The walk takes us by a manor house and other grand houses, touches on the picturesque settlement of Abbots Hay, by a hedge recently layed, by a field of sheep, by elegant stables now converted into a farm house, up an avenue of limes, by a Palladian church and to a cosy pub with a pretty garden.
The walk is 3.25 miles long. Patches of the route can be muddy.
Start at The Brocket Arms pub (TL 196169) in Ayot St Lawrence.
One
way to
get there from St Albans,
is to go out of town on Sandridge Road, through Sandridge and Wheathampstead to the
roundabout at the north end of Wheathampstead. Go right at the roundabout on to Codicote
Road, the B653. 
Take the first left, still Codicote Road, and then turn left again, into Bride Hall Lane. Pass Bride Hall on the left and then Shaw’s Corner, also on the left. When you see a ruined church on our left, park there on the road. The Brocket Arms is a bit further up on the right.
The pub does good food and has a good range of traditional beers.
The
walk: with your back to the pub, go right, along the road. At the first
corner turn left between brick pillars. Continue along the drive keeping to the
right. When
you reach a low grey brick wall with a black weather-boarded barn behind it in a
courtyard home you are at Abbots Hay. Go into the field ahead and turn left.
At the
end of th
e field, go over a stile and into a grassy field. Aim for the end of
the woods ahead and to the right. You want to be a little left of the water
tower. Go over the stile and on to the footpath closely confined between a fence
on the left and trees on the right (Prior’s Wood).
At the
asphalt road, Bibbs Hall Lane, go left. At the first corner, go right through
the gap to the right of a double wooden gate. A bit further away from the road,
in the woodland on the right, you will see the wild daffodils. At the four-path
crossways, go right, keeping the daffodil wood on your right. There will be more
daffodils along here.
Keep on
while the path is confined between fences. Shortly after the ash tree that is
lying on its side on your left and has vertical branches growing from it
, you
will come out into a narrow field. Go left to the far left end of the field. You
will come out on to an avenue of lime trees. Turn left along it.
When
you get to the four-path crossways at the corner of the daffodil wood, go right
with woodland on your right and a large cream house with grassy surrounds beyond
a line of trees on your left.
To print, click: short description | map | full description with photos
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