Christopher Somerville

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


At Quainton in the Buckinghamshire lowlands, the sails and white cap of a windmill overlook the sloping village green. On a cold cloudy afternoon, jolly chat and laughter came spilling from the George & Dragon.

Leaving the village on the North Bucks Way, we climbed the nape of Simber Hill. Somnolent cattle lay chewing the cud with eyes half closed in what looked like a state of transcendental bliss.

From Quainton Hill beyond, the views were remarkable, south to the long dark barrier of the Chiltern Hills, west and north over lower ground where whaleback hills rose from pasture striped with hedges. These green undulations looked beautiful from up here.

Down at the foot of Conduit Hill we passed between the shallow hummocks of Fulbrook, one of several deserted medieval villages hereabouts. Fulbrook probably lost most of its population during the Black Death pandemic of 1349, and the Duke of Bedford finished the job eighty years later when he converted the land into a deer park.

We followed a path across tussocky pasture and fields of dark grey plough to reach the road to North Marston. In a lane below the church we found a covered well with an old-fashioned pump. A sculpture of a boot stood attached to the stone trough.

Towards the end of the 13th century the rector of North Marston was Sir John Schorne, a renowned healer and miracle worker famed for capturing the Devil and imprisoning him in a boot. Sir John discovered the holy well during a deadly drought, and its water was said to cure gout and toothache. Judging by the agonised expression and contorted body of the rector’s icon at the well, he himself might have suffered from both afflictions.

The homeward path followed Matthew’s Way, a rural route dedicated to the memory of ‘a very special little boy’. His round infant face looked out of a photo placed beside the way, and we carried that image in our heads across the sheep pastures.

Under the grey cloud cap the western sky showed a crack of silver. As we approached Quainton a brown hare sprang up and darted away over the corrugations of medieval ridge and furrow, a lithe wild shape in this well-ordered landscape.
How hard is it? 7½ miles; easy; well marked field paths

Start: Village green, Quainton, Bucks HP22 4AR (OS ref SP 747201)

Getting there: Bus 16 (Aylesbury – Marsh Gibbon)
Road: Quainton is signed from A41 (Aylesbury – Bicester) at Waddesdon

Walk (OS Explorer 192): At top of green, left. By playground, right (745202); follow North Bucks Way north towards Quainton Hill. In ¾ mile, at top of rise with gate and blue arrow on right (750215), left to skyline gate; fork right down Conduit Hill. Cross road (752225); half right, following Outer Aylesbury Ring/OAR) across fields. In ½ mile, under power lines, right (761228, kissing gate/KG); aim for shed and stile to road (764228, OAR). Left into North Marston. In ¾ mile, right at T-junction (774228); fork left in front of Pilgrim PH; follow lane to church (777227). From south gate, right; left along Schorne Lane; fork left by well (777225). In 30m, right (KG),;follow well-marked Matthew’s Way for 2¼ miles across fields to Carter’s Lane (765202). Right; in 400m at Quainton Dairy, left (764205) on farm drive, passing Denham Hill Farm (759204), gates of Ladymead Farm (758202) and Denham Lodge (753204). Cross cattle grid; in 100m, left to road (751202); right into Quainton.

Lunch: George & Dragon, Quainton HP22 4AR (01296-655436, georgeanddragonquainton.co.uk)

Accommodation: The Lion, Waddesdon HP18 0JB (01296-651227, thelionwaddesdon.co.uk)

Info: visitbuckinghamshire.org

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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A cold blue morning over South Buckinghamshire, the train rattling away from Denham station, and the path across Bucks Golf Course frosted between its wooden fences. Clever landscaping of fairways and bunkers made the surroundings look like an undulating grassland, through which the golfers trundled their carts obediently from lie to lie.

Beyond the clubhouse lay the tangle of rivers and canal that forms the backbone of the Colne Valley Country Park. We crossed the River Colne and headed north from Denham Lock up the broad, quiet waterway of the Grand Union Canal.

Walkers, runners, gongoozlers and strollers lapped up the winter sunshine like thirsty camels at an oasis well. ‘So lucky, aren’t we?’ was the greeting of the Hillingdon Heath Walkers who were stumping along thirty strong and very cheerful.

Moorhens flew across the canal, patting the dark water into sparkles with their long green toes. A swan came in from the flooded gravel pits alongside, skimming low, as white and dramatic as a Sunderland flying boat, with great clapping beats as its wingtips smacked the surface of the canal.

We passed below the flattened skew arches of Denham railway viaduct, a workaday structure, yet beautifully patterned by its Victorian designers, light brick contrasting with dark, a lip of raised beading emphasising the graceful shape of each arch.

Up at Widenwater Lock we crossed the Grand Union and set back along a parallel path beside gravel-pit lakes where a pair of great crested grebes flirted beak to beak, shaking their heads at each other in a dream of courtship still a couple of months off.

Back at Denham Lock we followed a grassy path towards Denham village. A couple of dogs dug enthusiastically for treasure in the bed of the shallow River Misbourne. In the village street, every prospect pleased. Curly Dutch gables, mellow brick walls, red pantiles, immaculate gardens – it was as though the judges for ‘Prettiest Village In Buckinghamshire’ were due at any moment.

We followed the narrow lane intriguingly named The Pyghtle back to Denham Station. Green snowdrop spears were already pushing up along the verges, and under the flaky bark of sycamores a secret world slept the winter away – tiny beetles, immovable flies, and silk purses of spider eggs in waiting.

Start: Denham station, UB9 5ES (OS ref TQ 042877) or Colne Valley Country Park, UB9 5PG (048864)

Getting there: Rail to Denham. Road: Colne Valley/Denham Country Park is signed from A40, Jct 1.

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 172): Down steps by station ticket office; right through tunnel; in 100m ahead through kissing gate. Follow fenced path across golf course. Opposite church, left (045870) to club house (050868). Right down drive; through gates; left (049860, ‘Grand Union Canal’ fingerpost). In 400m cross footbridge (052862); left up canal for 1½ miles to Widenwater Lock (050887). Right across bridge; in 250m, right (051888, ‘Colne Valley Trail’/CVT, ‘London Loop’/LL), In 20m ignore barrier/path to right; ahead to turn right along CVT. In ¼ mile, right along road (054884); in 50m don’t fork left along LL, but follow road/CVT to right. In just over a mile, right across canal (053867); retrace steps to golf club drive near gates (049864). Ahead (‘Circular Walk’ fingerpost) past Colne Valley Country Park visitor centre, following ‘Denham Village’ and ‘South Bucks Way’ to road (043869). Right through Denham; at left bend, right (040871) along The Pyghtle to station.

Lunch/Accommodation: Falcon Inn, Denham UB9 5BE (01895-832125, falcondenham.com)

Info: Colne Valley Country Park (01895-833375, colnevalleypark.org.uk); satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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None of the Chiltern counties north-west of London is richer in beechwoods, chalky hollows and flinty ridges than Buckinghamshire. On a cold dank day in town you can feel those misty valleys beckoning you away from what you ought to be doing. We didn’t even try to fight it. We got our walking boots on, and set out before the clock struck midday from the Black Horse Inn, just outside Chesham where the Metropolitan tube runs out of line.

This is horse country, a land of paddocks and hay mangers. At Bower Farm the wind-vane figure was a polo player in mid-chukka. Nags caparisoned in thick winter blankets came to the field gates to see what we were up to. Up on the ridge above White Hawridge Bottom we trod heavy clay fields seeded with millions of flints. The rough nuggety soil had been the ruin of many Victorian ploughshares, whose snapped-off fragments lay rusting in the furrows.

The fine 18th-century farmhouse of Hawridge Court stands on the site of an early medieval manor, itself built inside an oval earthen bank that might date back a thousand years or more. The hedges in the valley bottom are thick and venerable, the beech woods ancient.

There’s a sense of long continuity in these Chiltern hills and hollows. The local clay has gone to make good bricks for hundreds of years, and the craft still flourishes at the brickworks of HG Matthews on its saddle of ground above the woods. There were stacks of red bricks in the yard, and a good sour smell of baking brick from the wood-fired kiln beyond the sheds.

We passed the cottages at Bellingdon Farm where DH Lawrence lived briefly in 1914 while writing ‘The Rainbow.’ Compton Mackenzie paid him a visit there, and was amused to find the great writer on his knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

The homeward path lay along a beautiful hillside and up between the blackly twisted beech roots of Captain’s Wood, where goldfinches flirted from tree to tree and a ghostly silver sun slipped briefly out between one drifting cloud and the next.

Start: Black Horse Inn, Chesham Vale, Bucks, HP5 3NS (OS ref SP 963045)

Getting there: Chesham is signed from A41 between Hemel Hempstead and Tring. At Chesham, follow ‘Hawridge’ for 1 mile to Black Horse.

Walk (6½ miles, easy underfoot, OS Explorer 181): From Black Horse, right along road. In 150m, right (fingerpost/FP, stile) up path. At gate at top of rise, right (961045, stile, arrow). Bear right along hedge, following yellow arrows/YAs; then through 2 large fields for ¾ mile. Opposite Hawridge Court, go through kissing gate/KG (950058); immediately left downhill (YAs, KGs) to valley bottom (948056). Right (KGs, YAs); in 400m cross Hawridge Lane (945059); on through 2 fields (YAs) and into woodland (941064).

In 300m, left at waymark post (939066, YA); cross valley bottom; up through woods to pass brickyard. At building across path, left (937062, YA) along field edge with hedge on right. In 250m, right past house (939061); in 100m, left (‘bridleway’ fingerpost). In ¼ mile, right down Hawridge Lane (942057) past Bellingdon Farm to road (940055).

Left; in 100m, right (fingerpost) down Two Gates Lane. In ¼ mile, left (940051, KG, YA) across 2 fields. Go through 5-barred gate under large oak (942051, YA) and on with hedge on left (gates, YAs). In ¼ mile, at end of 3rd field, through KG (946048); right along lane. At left bend, ahead (KG, YA) on fenced path. At field, left (YA) along hedge above valley.

In ½ mile enter Captain’s Wood (949040). Keep ahead. In 200m, left (950038, stile, YA) through paddocks (gates, YAs) into drive; ahead to cross road (952039). Through KG (fingerpost); left along track. In 300m track bends right (952042), then snakes left/right over stile (954043, YA) into Ramscourt Wood. Follow YAs through wood and down slope to bear right in valley bottom (958045) along track. In 250m, left by house (960043, YA, stile) up fenced path. Right over stile at top (961045); retrace steps to Black Horse.

Conditions: Some slippery stiles.

Lunch: Black Horse Inn (01494-784656; theblackhorsechesham.co.uk)

Info: High Wycombe TIC (01494-421892)
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville (Doubleday, £14.99). For 30% off, call 01206 255 777, quoting TIMES302017.

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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It was a murky old afternoon, with just one window of opportunity between two solid slabs of eastward-drifting rain. We pulled on our raingear and set out north from Steeple Claydon. A black hen, escaped from her pen, ran madly away across the furrows – good solid furrows several feet wide, remnants of medieval strip farming still imprinted on the land. This is low-rolling, cattle grazing country of modest ridges topped by trees, quintessentially Middle England, an unemphatic landscape whose subtleties unfold only slowly.

The stubble lay scattered with wheat grains, millions of them. The Victorian women and children who gleaned these fields after the harvest, scouring each row with beady eyes for the precious seeds, would have gathered almost every grain. As we walked along hedges bowed with little green crab apples and blackberries, I wondered when gleaners were last seen in the Buckinghamshire fields.

Kingsbridge Farm lay ahead, an angle of red tiled roof and a dark square of barn framed between a crab apple and a hawthorn either side of a five-barred gate – a view John Constable would have loved. We followed the green-grey Padbury Brook as it wound along field margins where the leaves of burdock hung in leathery sheaves like roosting bats. Suddenly a grinding roar filled the air. Looking up, we saw a Lancaster bomber trundling majestically across the cloudy sky like a plane in a dream.

A green lane and a wonderful formal avenue, broad and tree-lined, brought us past immaculate gardens to Hillesden church, a building whose dignified beauty inspired the young George Gilbert Scott to become an architect. The pale oak of the ancient church door was bored deep with bullet holes. This quiet hamlet was the scene of a desperate confrontation in March 1644, when 2,000 Roundhead soldiers laid siege to the Royalist stronghold of Hillesden House. It ended with the owner, Sir Alexander Denton, clapped into the Tower of London (where he soon died), his lands confiscated, his family ruined and his house levelled.

Out across the fields we followed a well-found farm track towards the red roofs and slender spire of Steeple Claydon, with rainclouds thickening overhead to hurry our homeward steps.

Start: Fountain Inn, West Street, Steeple Claydon, Bucks MK18 2NT (OS ref SP 698271)

Getting there: Bus – Service 18 (buckscc.gov.uk/transport), Bicester-Buckingham.
Road – Steeple Claydon is signposted from Padbury, off A413 (Winslow-Buckingham).

Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 192): From Fountain Inn, left along West Street. On right bend by Co-op, ahead along Meadoway; on beside recreation ground (fingerpost), past school and on for ⅓ mile (stiles, yellow arrows/YA) to cross road (702275, ‘Bernwood Jubilee Way’/BJW). Follow BJW across fields. In ¾ mile cross stream (705287); bear right to enter green lane; left across Padbury Brook at King’s Bridge (704288). Right over stile (BJW); follow left bank of Padbury Brook.

In 250m, right across brook (703290, BJW); continue along its bank. In ¼ mile go under power cables; in 100m, left (703295) away from brook. Don’t go right across ditch; keep ahead with hedge on right for 400m to junction of paths near lone tree standing apart from hedge (699296). Angle back left across field, then along green lane. In 700m, leave trees (701290); in another 200m, right across stile (702289, YA). Follow hedge on right; in 100m, right over stile along broad grassy avenue west for 1 mile. At end, pass Hillesden House gardens, then church (686288).

Just beyond church, left (‘Cross Bucks Way’); follow road, then farm track to Church-hill Farm. At first barn bear left (686283, waymark arrow); follow track for ⅓ mile to T-junction; right here (690282). In ⅓ mile, at T-junction with 3 gateways (693279), right along hedge, following YAs to cross Padbury Brook at Claydon Plank by 2 footbridges (694274). Ahead for 100m past pumping house; left through hedge; 2 kissing gates, then path to road (697272). Right to Fountain PH.

Refreshments: Fountain PH, Steeple Claydon (01296-730286) – friendly local; no food, but you can eat own picnic there. Also Phoenix Inn, Queen Catherine Road, Steeple Claydon (01296-738919).

Accommodation: Villiers Hotel, 3 Castle Street, Buckingham MK18 1BS (01280-822444; oxfordshire-hotels.co.uk) – smart, welcoming town centre hotel.

Information: Buckingham TIC (01280-823020)
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk; www.satmap.com;