Turning here to the right hand, and then ascending the first lane branching off to the left from the main road, a steep way leads up to the queerly named Popnuts Green, and on to Kennesbourne Green, where the Harpenden-Luton road is struck. Speeding to the right along this, and taking a left-hand turn at Mutton End, we come steeply down into the valley of the Lea (and into the Lea itself if we are not careful) at Pickford Mill.
FLAMSTEAD.
The quiet, park-like beauty of Hertfordshire scenery is in no district more lovely than that mapped out here. To follow the course of a river downwards is often a good cycling tip, and one well worth remembering when studying maps for the purpose of planning tours, for it gives, as a rule, a descending gradient. The next few miles of this ride fully bear out these remarks, and, moreover, afford some exquisite peeps of the Lea, bordered by picturesque mills. Pickford Mill and Batford Mill are among the most striking of these. At Batford the view is especially beautiful.
A lane leads from here to the left, towards Mackery End, a Charles Lamb landmark. By this very road that we have come he and his cousin Bridget revisited the scenes of their childhood some forty years later; for it was at the farmhouse of Mackery End that some early days had been passed with the Gladmans, relatives of theirs. “Hail! Mackery End,” exclaims Lamb, writing of this visit, and adding, “this is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but got no farther.” Just as well, perhaps, because the name and subject would scarcely seem to lend themselves to the blank-verse method. The first line, for example, does not compare favourably with “Hail! smiling morn,” does it?
The farmhouse of Mackery End can still be seen, but it is greatly altered. Perhaps the barns and outhouses at the back are contemporary with Elia. A very interesting old house is this Jacobean mansion to which the name of Mackery End is generally given, although the title belongs to the hamlet in general, this being the “End” in the direction of the wide-spreading parish of Wheathampstead. It stands solitary in a meadow, and is dignified and imposing.
Regaining the road from this literary landmark, we pass watercress farms and watery meadows, and, running through a little hamlet, come uphill to Wheathampstead by the railway station. Here turn to the right, and through the village, taking the left-hand turn just beyond the church. It is a long, straggling village, whose downhill or uphill perspectives are alike pleasing. The church—one of the largest in Hertfordshire—has an odd spire; a whimsical elaboration upon the usual Herts method which must surely have been of strictly local design.
