Ampthill is an elegant Georgian market town on the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge, with Ampthill Park — once a royal hunting ground associated with Katherine of Aragon — providing immediate parkland walking, and the ruins of Houghton House, said to have inspired John Bunyan’s House Beautiful, just outside town.

A handsome Georgian town directly on the Greensand Ridge Walk, Ampthill makes a pleasant base for this 40-mile long-distance route, combining historic parkland with quiet wooded ridge walking through central Bedfordshire.