If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
Google map of the walkDownload GPX file of the walk
I did this 15.4 mile circular walk on Saturday, 9th June 2012. Click here to see a map of the walk (but only if you have already read my disclaimer and notes regarding maps) It was the reverse of a walk I did in October 2011 - this time I did it anti-clockwise.
I had taken the week off work (Monday and Tuesday were Bank Holidays, because of the Diamond Jubilee) and had hoped to do three or four walks. Unfortunately the weather was miserably wet every day (so much for Flaming June!) and this was the first opportunity I'd had. Even so, the skies were still very grey all morning and there were no real breaks in the clouds until about 2pm. The paths were very muddy everywhere I went, and apart from the greenery on the trees it was more like walking in late Autumn or Winter than early Summer.
I parked by the common in Cadmore End (Grid reference SU 783927), opposite the School, and started walking about 10.05am. I crossed the road and took the forestry track starting just beyond the school car park. This soon went under the M40 motorway, and continued through Pound Wood. A short path soon went half-right through the trees, and at its end I turned right along the same forestry track (the path had just cut a corner). The track headed northeast, crossing a short gap between Pound Wood and Leygrove's Wood, then continuing for some distance through the latter wood.
The bridge under the M40 motorway at Cadmore End
Approaching Leygrove's Wood from Pound Wood - the puddles are a good clue as to conditions under foot throughout this walk
Leygrove's Wood
At the end of Leygrove's Wood the forestry track terminated, but a path continued ahead through a belt of trees connecting that wood to Barn Wood. It continued through Barn Wood, and then through another narrow tree belt. At the end of the tree belt I reached a path junction where I turned right onto a bridleway that passed Fillingdon Farm and carried on to reach a minor road close to the A40 on the eastern edge of Pidlington.
Between Leygrove's Wood and Barn Wood
The path just before leaving Barn Wood
The tree belt going northeast from Barn Wood
The bridleway heading east to Fillingdon Farm
The bridleway continuing east from Fillingdon Farm
I turned left and crossed the A40, then took a bridleway on the far side. This started by Ham Farm and followed a surfaced track beside a hedgerow towards the eastern end of Bottom Wood. As I followed this track I spotted four types of Campion - Red Campion, White Campion, 'Pink' Campion (a hybrid between White and Red Campion) and Bladder Campion. I'd already seen Herb Robert and Wood Avens, the flowers I'd see most often on today's walk. The track led on to, and continued through, Bottom Wood (a nature reserve maintained by the Chiltern Society). The path was inevitably rather muddy in places after all the rain we'd had. It was over a mile before I reached the far end of the wood, where I turned right on a path that followed a hedgerow in the bottom of a small valley. After passing a large paddock on my right, I reached the end of a lane, which I followed right through part of the scattered village of Radnage (by scattered, I mean it consists of several separate 'ends' or hamlets - this one, the largest, is called 'The City', and I would pass through another section, Town End, later on).
The track going northwest from Hall Farm to Bottom Wood
Approaching Bottom Wood
The bridleway through Bottom Wood
The bridleway through Bottom Wood
The bridleway through Bottom Wood
The bridleway northwest from the west end of Bottom Wood to Radnage
The lane through Radnage