Heidi's walk. Shenley Wood and Loughton village.

A gorgeous 7 miles figure-of-eight walk based on Heidi’s sojourns with me. Heidi is my daughter’s dog, a beautiful Swedish vallhund and regular and welcome visitor to my home.

The first loop takes us to the green spaces of Shenley Brook End’s Recreation Ground and then the Garthwaite Pavilion sports fields before alighting to Shenley Wood with its overhead canopy of ash and oak trees and its understory of hazel bushes, an ancient woodland dating back to the Domesday survey of 1086. We then pass through Shenley Toot, which includes the remains of a motte and bailey castle and the earthworks of a landscaped garden of a Tudor manor house. After we walk through the historic centre of Shenley Church End village, we pick up a hidden bridle track that takes us to the vertex point of our figure-of-eight walk and the start of the second loop. We walk to the historical part of Loughton village via Whitworth Lane, Milton Keynes’ very own millionaires’ row, where average property prices are closer to £2 million than £1 million. We see the North Loughton moated site, a scheduled ancient monument, the 16th-century Manor Farm and Cell Farm at The Green, All Saints' Church and finally the old school house which has recently been refurbished.