The Slipe

County – Bedford

Elevation - 107m

Date – 16 October 2022

Distance – 5.3km

Elevation Climbed - 38m

Status – 44th highest Unitary Authority top

107m isn't much to write home about. It's the kind of height you'd normally associate with getting out of the car and taking a quick pic. But The Slipe, the highest point of Bedford borough, is something of a hidden delight.

I got to the village of Lavendon on a clear October Sunday afternoon, and parked up by Lavendon Castle (not much of a castle) outside the back of the village. It being a nice Sunday there were a fair few walkers perambulating the fields, although none of them seemed to be headed towards a nondescript woodland a mile and a half away...

The CT is on the edge of a small woodland called the Slipe. I don't know why it's called that. A slipe is an old word for a kind of sledge which runs on tow poles instead of wheels and is used for moving cumbersome loads; maybe they cut the trees down to make the poles here? I dunno.

Anyway, it was a lovely day, and when I found the top (by the ruins of an old brick shed in the wood), I posed for a silly pic:

I wandered back the way I came, serenaded by skylarks, and headed for the car and England's smallest county...