The Ridgeway
This is a great long distance (87 miles) footpath that cuts across the north of the London basin through the lovely Chiltern Hills which cosy right up to the edge of London and cosset the Thames Valley. London is blessed with some great surrounding countryside. The Chiltern Hills are wonderful country for walkers and cyclists. and are the spiritual home of Midsomer Murders if you are into that sort of thing, you know dreamy English villages, duckponds and the rest.
You can get to the Chiltern Hills from London by getting a train north west from Marylebone Station, one of the smallest and most compact London railway termini. You can take your bike with you on the train if you want to mix it with the cycling and walking. There are a couple of routes you can take from Marylebone station to end up on the Ridgeway. You can aim for Princes Risborough, a tidy little town on the edge of the Vale of Aylesbury, or Wendover, another well heeled little town just a few miles to the east on a different line.
Walk from Princes Risborough to Wendover (great day walk)
It's a bit of a distance from the rail station to the town centre and a bike came in really useful.
Princes Risborough dates possibly back to Roman times, and the 'Black Prince,' Edward, had his palace here in the 14th century, which is where the town's name came from. You can take lunch at a little café in the centre of Princes Risborough as I did, then climb the hill to link in with the nearest section of the Ridgeway which is signposted along its length. From the top of the scarp slop you can appreciate wide vistas across the lower belly of England, the expansive Vale of Aylesbury stretching far into the distance. Here you find yourself in Whiteleaf Nature Reserve which is known for its butterflies and wildflowers. Then off you go striding east along the top of the scarp slope through wide stretches of beech woods and sunny glades, interspersed with wide horizons when the woodland fades out.
A highlight of this particular stretch is that the Ridgeway goes through the grounds of Chequers, the British Prime Minister's country residence dating from the sixteenth century. I was fortunate enough to do this walk on a lovely sunny January day making the views crystal clear with the blue sky accentuating the greens and browns of these gentle hills. You walk down one side of the estate with the old mansion clearly in view, then cross the front of the estate near the main gate, taking care not to scrutinise the security cameras too much! Then the path takes you up and out of the valley floor into the extensive beech woods which take you up to Coombe Hill and fantastic views again across the Vale of Aylesbury. Here there is also a monument to Buckinghamshire men killed in the Boar War.
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| Coombe Hill monument |
From here you can work your way down into Wendover. The only problem you might have in this situation is if it is late, or if you don't want to walk back a fair old way, there's no direct public transport the other way. But you can take the train from Wendover up to Aylesbury, which I did, then get a train down to Princes Risborough. Whilst loitering in Aylesbury I wandered into Asda and bought a DVD. On my return to Risborough I bought fish and chips in the town centre which I was able to finish off on the train home.
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PM's home there in the background! |
Wendover to Ivinghoe Beacon
Wendover is a well heeled type of town mentioned in the Domesday Book, and is part of London commuter land on the main route from London to Aylesbury.
This is another belter of a walk. Catch a train again from Mary's bones (my cockney rhyming slang!) and alight in the town centre. If you wish you can grab supplies from that posh supermarket of Budgens, again the supermarket has appeared in a beige handbag area! I started off by walking through the church yard of St Mary the Virgin. Built in the 14th century, it was used as a camp for Oliver Cromwells' troops in the Civil War. Moving on, you follow the path and pick up the Ridgeway which then heads west along the ridge through the lovely Hales Wood with the Vale of Aylesbury on the left as usual. After the settlement of Hastoe, you pass through Tring Park, with its manor house and fallow deer. The large town of Tring is nearby but slightly off the Ridgeway. It has lots of facilities if that's what you're looking for.
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| Ivinghoe Beacon! |
You always come across the odd gem on these travels, and I could not resist taking a photo of a country gate with the unbeatable notice, 'Jesus loves you, but I'm his favourite.' Not what you'd expect in rural Buckinghamshire.
After Wigginton you pass over the A41 dual carriageway and the Grand Union Canal.
Once you pass over the main rail line from London Euston to the north you have more open downland interspersed with woodland to pick up the remainder of the Ridgeway to Ivinghoe Beacon. You can take a diversion to the classic English village of Aldbury if you want. It's so postcard yummy that it has been used in films like The Avengers, Inspector Morse (I thought he was based in Oxford!) and The Dirty Dozen. Back to the Ridgeway, the path winds along the contours through a straggle of woodland before reaching the open downland. From there on it's wide vistas, endless skies and a sniff of the destination after a few valleys and field crossings. Once out of the woods I realised that my £100 plus sunglasses were no longer hanging snug at the top of my tee-shirt. The dilemma was, do I go back to find them or carry on to the destination before dusk? I had a pretty good idea of how I'd lost them, taking a leak off the main track, but decided to look for them later after reaching my destination first, so onward I strode. I think I may have spotted one of our esteemed Conservative MPs striding topless (it was a he and it had been quite warm!) with a lady-friend on the same path. They shall remain nameless! I was tempted to say hello but held back. The destination seemed to keep disappearing over the horizon as if a giant invisible hand was continually moving it out of my reach, but eventually I got there just as the day was beginning to slip away. Here I admired the 360 degree view back towards London over the Chiltern hills and north over the plain. There is an information board and trig point.
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| Onward to Ivinghoe! |
Retracing my steps, eventually I reached the woods again just as there was a little too much dark creeping in. I foraged around off track in three or four spots, praying I would get back my superposy cool guy sunglasses. I was just about to give up when one last investigation yielded success, there they were nestled in the undergrowth. 'Seek and ye shall find,' and I have serious form here. I have found sunglasses three times after losing them in the countryside.
When I got back to Tring, I found the town could not give me a bus ride back to Wendover on a Saturday night. Thinking of a taxi ride, I stopped at a bus stop and engaged this woman with a people carrier plus child about local buses. It was a case of 'we don't do buses on a Saturday evening.' Amazingly, she offered to take me back to Wendover herself. Ah, irresistible charm unlocks a thousand doors! She told her son in front of me that this course of action was not normally advisable! a woman taking a complete stranger of the opposite sex for a lift in your vehicle for several miles. But she merrily returned me to Wendover for a few coins pocket money for her son. I was very grateful as she dropped me off within the comforting sight of Budgens, that great servant of mankind.
