The area in the south of the village was known to have been quarried for materials since Roman times, where the Romans extracted clay for use in the production of pottery. By the 1930's the area was once again being quarried, this time it was for sand and gravel to be used for major house and road building projects. This ceased in the 1960s and the area was left unattended for over 20 years. In 1990 work began on transforming the now overgrown area into a country park, and in May 1993, with the work complete, it was opened as Milton Country Park. The park was initially managed by South Cambridgeshire District Council, but due to funding issues this was outsourced on a 99-year lease to a registered charity called Cambridge Sport Lakes Trust, who have managed it since 2008.
The park has areas of woodland and grassland including a D-Day Remembrance Meadow, but the main features are the lakes which were created using the large pits that were created during the sand and gravel extraction. The lakes are used extensively for fishing and water-sports, where you will find opportunities to take part in paddleboarding, kayaking and canoeing. Cycling is a big thing in this part of the country, British Cycling regularly runs sessions on the park's off-road cycling tracks. Elsewhere in the park you will find 'Zapt Laser Tag' which is described as 'the ultimate action-packed outdoor gaming experience', a couple of children's playgrounds, cafe, sensory garden and an orchard. It's even home to a forest school, bushcraft and outdoor education centre called The Wild Place. It is also one of the places in the UK where you can spot black squirrels.
On 30 January 2010 the park became home to its very own free, weekly, timed 5km event called Cambridge parkrun. Then the pandemic came along and when it was time for parkrun to return, sadly Cambridge parkrun didn't. Then, in April 2023, after an absence of just over three years, the parkrun returned to Milton Country Park, but with a brand new name of Milton Country parkrun. The re-birth of the parkrun also came with a change of course. Like all parkruns, the event is open to all abilities including those who wish to walk the course. The course is fine for those who wish to participate with a buggy but please note that parkrunners are not permitted to take part with a dog. I visited the park on 1 June 2024 and took part in event number 576.
If travelling by car, the venue has a fair-sized car park that seems to be able to accommodate the parkrunners and other visitors quite comfortably. There is a charge for parking and all the proceeds go towards the upkeep of the park. At the time of my visit, the charges were £1 for up to 30 minutes (very unlikely that many parkrunners would be able to take advantage of this option), up to 2 hours costs £3.75, while anything over 2 hours is charged at £6. Payment can be made in a couple of ways, the first option is to pay at the machine which only accepts contactless payments from either a card or contactless payment app on a smartphone. The other option is to pay for the parking in advance through the park's website. Should you wish to avoid the car park entirely, you may be able to find some parking on residential streets in the village, but you will then have at least a kilometre to reach the park.
Travel by public transport is also possible, however Milton doesn't have its own train station, so if travelling by train it is best to aim for Cambridge North station. The onward walk to the country park is approximately 1.2 miles (2 kilometres). There is also a bus, the Stagecoach number 2 service, which runs from the south of Cambridge, through the city centre, then via Cambridge North train station and onto Milton. The bus stops on Cambridge Road just outside the large Tesco and the country park is just a few minutes' walk from here. Finally for anyone cycling, you may be in for a treat, as Cambridge is known as the cycling capital of the UK. The town has a great cycling infrastructure which certainly makes it an ideal way to get around. The country park has multiple banks of cycle racks.
I would imagine most people would enter via the car park entrance as this is the main entry point regardless of the method of arrival. This is quite handy as this is where the toilets are located - I can report that they appeared to be in very good condition and they were open when I arrived in the park at around 8.15am. From the car park, it's not instantly obvious exactly which way to head to find the parkrun meeting point. It is in fact quite simple, all you do is head in a straight line for about 250 metres. If looking on a map you need to aim for the bottom left hand (south-west) corner of the lake called Dickerson's Pit. If you use the park's official map the closest marked feature is the 'viewpoint'. The start and finish points are also located in this area.
The parkrun takes place over a clockwise two-and-a-bit-lap course with the addition of a start tail and a finish tail (note: two separate tails). The surface underfoot is exactly what you would expect for a country park. The paths are largely dirt with some compacted stones and they are quite often muddy, or at the very least a little splashy. I always go with trail shoes on this type of course, but road shoes will do the job if the conditions are good (ie not too muddy). Although I will add that some of the muddy patches I encountered were quite slippery, even in trail shoes. The hill profile is non-existent and this was confirmed by my GPS data which shows an elevation gain of zero metres. The first-timers' and the main briefings take place at the meeting point and all the participants then form the start line facing towards the east.
The path at the start is just a standard-width, but there is a bit of grass at the side for some possible over spill, however I found almost all of the participants were very disciplined and stuck to the path. This was probably quite sensible as there are some fixed obstacles on the grass such as trees and a bench. The start section is only covered once and at the end of it the path merges seamlessly into the park's perimeter path where the two-and-a-bit clockwise laps largely take place. The paths are almost entirely tree-lined giving this event a forest feel and despite there being multiple lakes within the centre of the park, only a few fleeting glimpses of them are ever seen.
Within the early part of the lap the route emerges into the central area of the park and passes quite close to the car park and toilets, but then it heads off northwards alongside another of the park's lakes called Todd's Pit. Once away from the familiar central section, I have to admit that I completely lost my bearings and had no idea where I was at any given time - this is not a course that you could easily turn up to do a freedom run. There are marshals dotted around at various points on the course and there are other sections where the route is marked with arrows and this seems to work just fine. There are a couple of wooden bridges to cross; the first one is wide enough for two people to negotiate side-by-side, but the second one is single file.
I found I had two quite different experiences on the laps. The first lap was busy but not too congested, so felt a bit hustly and bustly, but the second lap turned out to be much more peaceful and I felt really relaxed plodding around the lovely country park. I even had a few chats with fellow parkrunners I encountered along the way. I also found out about a thing called 'Milton Pong'. Just to the south of Milton (very close to the country park) is Cambridge's sewage works and in certain conditions, the foul smell can drift right across the village, hence the 'Milton Pong'. I didn't smell anything untoward during my visit and although that's probably a good thing, I was a tiny bit disappointed that I didn't experience one of Milton's quirky features.
There are a couple of long straight pathways but in-between them there are many glorious sections of meandering and twisty forest paths to play on - I found myself in a very happy place during these sections! Keep an eye out underfoot as there are some protruding tree roots on the paths and depending on the time of year there will also be mud. My visit was in June so the course was in fairly decent shape, but there were still some large sections of mud, and as I mentioned earlier, some bits were quite slippery. There is a point in the lap where there is a T junction where the course turns left upon the first and second time of reaching it. Upon reaching it for the third time, the course turns right and this is the finish tail which is about 100 metres in length and heads back into the parkrun meeting area where the finish funnel can be found.
Barcode scanning takes place on the grass area immediately after the finish and the post-parkrun refreshments can be found in Grounds Cafe, which has a lovely lakeside position with both indoor and outdoor seating. I recorded the course using my Garmin and the data has been uploaded onto Strava, so feel free to take a look if you'd like to see the course in more detail. There is also a Relive course fly-by video which I made from that data, again feel free to take a look at that on YouTube. The results for event 576 were processed and published online a few hours later, and I see that 211 people took part. This figure is broadly in line with the average number of attendees, although it does sometimes jump up into the 300's. So far the new iteration of the event has not reached the much higher numbers that the original Cambridge parkrun was getting.
After the parkrun the natural thing to do may be to pop into the centre of Cambridge to explore the city centre. I have never actually been into Cambridge itself, and this time was no different. I decided to save it for when I have the rest of the family with me so we can make a proper day out of it. So once I'd finished chatting to some of the locals and had a little look around the rest of the park, I headed off. I had such a lovely morning at the event and I left with very nice memories of my visit. Thank you to all of the volunteers and everyone else that made me feel so welcome.
Related Links:
- Milton Country parkrun GPS data (June 2024)
- The Relive course fly-by video (June 2024)
- The original Cambridge parkrun course (No longer used - for info only)
- The Relive course fly-by video (No longer used - for info only)
- The Cambridgeshire parkrun venues (blog7t page)
Cambridge parkrun write-ups:
- Coldham's Common (not yet visited)
- Fulbourn Hospital parkrun write-up (2023)
- Storeys Field parkrun (not yet visited)
- Milton Country parkrun write-up (2024)
