WALKING / The beauty of Biggleswade: Michael Leapman joins fellow members of the Ramblers' Association in Bedfordshire

ALTHOUGH we have been members of the Ramblers' Association for eight years, my wife and I had never ventured on any of the walks offered by the local group. We eagerly scan the programme when it arrives every few months and have often been tempted - but have then found excuses for not going.

Would the other walkers be too fast or too slow for us? Would the leader exert military-style discipline? Would we be prevented from stopping to look at things? Would we be stuck with a group of people we did not get on with?

Last month we bit the bullet as there were several enticing features of the walk in question. It was 13 miles long - just about our favoured distance. It took in a 19th-century garden and two churches that were all new to us. And it was in Bedfordshire - not generally known as hiking country.

The circular walk began at Biggleswade station. It was a marvellous sunny Sunday after weeks of heavy rain. Half a dozen of us had gone by car and the other 10 arrived on the appointed train. The leader explained that he came across the walk in a leaflet he picked up locally. It described a seven-mile circular route, with the three miles to and from the station bringing it up to 13.

We marched west through the back streets of Biggleswade, crossed the River Ivel, then negotiated the A1. The initial pace was slightly faster than we normally walk but we quickly adjusted and the leader was careful not to leave any stragglers behind.

After heading between fields of mature vegetables, we walked up the drive past King's Hill Farm, then turned north up a path that in parts was a quagmire after the rain.

Since we set out we had been walking towards a white airship hovering in the distance and we now found where it was based, for the path took us to the perimeter of Old Warden airfield, home of the Shuttleworth collection of vintage aircraft and cars. We all declined the option of visiting it, preferring the bucolic pleasures of the Swiss Garden alongside.

The garden dates from the early years of the 19th century, when it was created by the Ongley family, who had dominated the area since 1700. It takes its name from the so-called Swiss Cottage in the middle; one of several rustic structures, including an elaborate grotto and a thatched tree shelter introduced by the third Lord Ongley in the 1840s.

There was little in flower, although a Japanese maple and a false acacia were among trees providing spectacular autumn colour. The garden was restored 12 years ago by Bedfordshire Council, which maintains it well.

Had we been on our own, we would have spent more time there than the allotted half-hour. That was the first disadvantage of being with a group.

The second was that we had to retrace our steps a little, negotiating the muddy path a second time, before crossing more fields and penetrating a dark wood to get to the village of Old Warden for lunch at the Hare and Hounds.

The leader explained why we had doubled back: if he had not taken us to the garden first we would have arrived at the pub too early. By ourselves, equipped with a picnic, we would have been prepared to sacrifice the pub. Nor do we normally spend an hour on lunch - the time we had to wait for those who were eating.

The village itself contains houses of varying ages, all redesigned by Lord Ongley in the same spirit as his Swiss confections in the garden. According to local lore, he made the villagers wear red cloaks and tall hats to add to the effect.

Old Warden church is a little way from the village, across a couple of fields. It has a Norman tower but most of its internal medieval features have been obscured by the elaborate and historic wood carvings and panels introduced by the same Lord Ongley in 1841. Dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, they create one of the most remarkable interiors of any parish church I have seen.

The route passed through another wood and by yet more acres of vegetables. One field was being harvested by a team of pickers of distinctly Mediterranean aspect, some wearing fezzes.

Then we walked through the yard of Highlands Farm, whose fine Georgian farmhouse was used as a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War and has since been beautifully restored.

The second church was at Northill, strikingly coloured with brown ironstone and some fine 17th-century painted glass. From there we walked to the adjoining village of Ickwell Green, where the green in question is large enough to accommodate separate football and cricket pitches.

From there the original intention had been to go across the muddy field for a third time, but the leader devised a drier, parallel route, a little further north. The last couple of miles of a 13-mile walk are always the toughest, especially with some of the group rushing for the London train; but we all stayed the course.

What about our fears of being marooned with a group of obsessively hearty fitness freaks, or people socially incompatible for other reasons?

Quite groundless, of course. They were an amiable and entertaining group and the leader kept us on track without being bossy. We spent an enjoyable and companionable day in a part of the country we might not have discovered for ourselves.

Having to fall in with someone else's timetable was an insignificant price to pay. It will not be eight years before we do it again.

(Photograph and map omitted)