Thursday 3rd February Sundon Hills to the Clappers led by Tony R.

This was a walk designed to fill a hole in the walking programme at the last minute before the programme was sent to members. It was fine day with  a little bit of wind. 22 people did the walk, one of the largest number for a while. We started from Sundon Hills car park which we almost filled with all our cars. We left the car park & walked across the nominally flat meadows in an easterly direction. The meadows became more undulating & this caused gaps in the group as some lagged behind, not used to the slopes. We descended into a small muddy valley which formally had a very steep difficult slope leading up to the edge of the woods. Very fortunately steps have been built here which considerably eases the difficulty.
We walked through the woods often on  a carpet of brown leaves left over from the autumn before crossing Sharpenhoe Road. We kept right of the hedge as the official footpath to the left is notoriously muddy, At the end of this footpath we turned left and followed the track along the eastern side the the Clappers with great views over Barton and the surrounding countryside. We shortly arrived a large log where we stopped for a coffee break. 

Walkers at the coffee break stop

After our break we found the footpath on the western edge of the Clappers & followed it to pass through the Clappers NT car park before again crossing the road and climbing a few steps into a sheep meadow, sadly devoid of sheep today. 

We crossed this meadow and descended onto the track at the bottom of the hill which we followed for over a mile before tuning off to climb, past a bench, through a kissing gate into the original meadow that we took care to cross & avoid the deep hollows running across it.. Thence we arrived safely back at Sundon Hills car park

Ruth's thoughts on the walk
A lovely dry, mild day brought out lots of ramblers, some that have not walked much for a while and it was lovely to see so many. We walked from the Sundon Hills car park across sheep-cropped grass to the edge of the chalk escarpment, cut right across to the edge that overshadows the A6 and stopped for coffee at the convenient logs near the Sharpenhoe Clappers monument.  We then descended to follow the path that winds to the North, between the steep hillside and the fields, climbing back up to the plateau before the chalk pit. We were back comfortably for lunch.

Track of walk, walked in anti-clockwise direction