Stansted St Margarets, River Lee Navigation and Great Amwell

The walk continues along the bank of the River Lee / Lea, made navigable here by locks. Gravel workings on the far side of the river have made possible the creation of the Amwell Nature Reserve, inhabited by a wide variety of birds, including kingfishers and owls.

The walk leaves the river, crosses the canal, and climbs through woods and farmland to the charming village of Great Amwell, still a pleasant rural backwater. The path through the romantic hillside churchyard of St John the Baptist, with its eccentric monuments and stocks, leads past a number of large monuments that include the impressive temple vault of the Cathrow family and the imposing 19th-century Mylne mausoleum. Not far away is an unusual obelisk, a tall memorial erected in 1728 to a local family called Plover.

Several literary men are buried in the churchyard, including the poet William Warner, a contemporary of Shakespeare, and Isaac Reed, who published two editions of Shakespeare's works.

The interior of the church is as interesting as the churchyard. The unusual apse — the domed recess at the east end of the church — is one of only three in the county. Much of the church is Norman, but the tower and west door date from the early 15th century.

Below the wooded churchyard is a beautifully kept water garden. It resembles a fine 18th-century landscape garden. The garden was created in 1800 by Robert Mylne, a local waterworks engineer and architect. It was built as a memorial to Sir Hugh Myddelton, who, in 1609, dug the New River that runs through the garden.

The New River is a linear reservoir, 40 miles long (note: originally transcribed as 40 metres), designed to take drinking water to London. Mylne also designed the red- and yellow-brick waterworks buildings on the New River, which house the large water-pumping engines.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.