The walk extends north from Saffron Walden towards Ashdon & Bartlow, two villages lovingly recollected in the 1920 memoir “Reuben’s Corner” later re-published in 1969 with the cringeworthy title “The Only Way was Essex”. It's a simple story of Spike Mays' rural childhood in the early part of the twentieth century. 
Spike Mays grew up in in Steventon End, Ashdon and  part of our walk will retrace his steps and  recall much that remains from that time. The countryside has not changed a great deal, with Walton’s Park visible behind its high wall, and Place Farm where Mays worked as a farm boy an attractive half-timbered farmhouse. Farm labourers whose idiosyncrasies are affectionately drawn in Mays’ story, are now remembered in the names of present-day cottages; now comfortable homes and a far-cry from the miserable dwellings of a hundred years ago. Let’s see if we can spot them on our walk!