Letste one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Letste here.

Reviewed in the direction Letchworth to Stevenage
A very pleasant route through leafy suburbs on flat pavements and well tended tracks. There is one short section (<50m) on road in Graveley village.
The main problem is at Willian where there is a short flight of steps. This can be avoided by walking along another short stretch of road (approx. 50m).
At Graveley, walkers can continue straight along the back lane rather than descending into the village as shown on the SlowWay map. There are two pubs and a pretty duck pond in the village.
There is a crossing at the Graveley Road near the motorway junction but the sight lines are not good for traffic coming from the right. There is a central reservation and the footpaths are good on both sides. Take care when crossing here.
There is a narrow pavement on the opposite side of Julians Road railway bridge (see photo), but the pavement on the near side is satisfactory.
Unless there is a desire to visit Old Stevenage and its pubs, cafes and shops, stay on the pedestrian/cycleway alongside Lytton Way to the station.

By its nature this is mostly an urban route but for the most part it manages to avoid walking alongside lots of traffic. At the Letchworth end, the route is along wide streets through the centre, and in the suburbs it goes mostly on footpaths away from roads. In Stevenage there is a little more walking on residential streets but the route also goes along one or two old footpaths and uses the town’s cycle path network to keep away from main roads as much as possible.

There are some problematic sections:
1. At the edge of Stevenage, walking alongside the A602 is unpleasant with traffic fumes and crossing the Graveley Road at the A1(M) junction is difficult.
2. At Willian, there is no pavement at the northern end of Wymondley Road. A detour is recommended using the path between Wymondley Road and the village green, by The Fox pub.
3. A narrow pavement and blind corner on Julians Road railway bridge, Stevenage - it is easy here to bump into anyone coming from the other direction!

There is also a minor issue with the route where it seems a small kink has been plotted by accident, just north of Fishers Green.

Some optional diversions are possible - both of these paths can be seen on Open Streetmap:
1. By the minor road between Manor Wood and Roxley Court there is a permissive path along the edge of the field which is nicer to take than walking along the road.
2. On Spring Road, Letchworth there is a path through trees away from the pavement.

The countryside between Willian and Stevenage is fine, with views over the fields to Hitchin.

On the route, there are pubs at Willian and Graveley and a village shop at Willian, and lots of facilities at each end of the route. At both Willian and Graveley there is a pond which is a nice spot to stop at.

The railway crossing at Julian's Way, Stevenage, has a very narrow footpath, and the road seems potentially too busy to be zigzagging across. It's an important issue with social distancing being a thing these days; when we walked this way we were a little startled by another pedestrian coming the other way, around a blind corner, and it wasn't easy to distance.

This has some good points, but some bad ones too; we wondered if some of the routes by main roads could be avoided, particularly where the route passes the A1(M) junction.

At Willian, the route goes along a section of Wymondley Road that has no footpath. A better route would deviate on the public footway that goes past the Fox PH; there is a route that connects the pub to Wymondley Road.

At Spring Road, Letchworth, there is a slightly nicer route away from the main road.

Points of note:
If you deviate off the route near Willian Arboretum, the path takes you past the sculpture of Telford Morton.

The UK's first roundabout at Broadway, Letchworth.

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