Pete's Walks- Watlington Hill, Russell's Water, Swyncombe (page 6 of 6)
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.
I then turned right along a road heading south from Watlington, but after less than a quarter of a mile I turned left onto a path along a drive (there is a gate across the entrance to the drive, with a pedestrian gate next to it). After a few yards I went slightly left again, leaving the drive and following a path between hedgerows for some distance to reach the foot of Watlington Hill. I normally go straight on here, but when I did this walk in the opposite direction I took a path that went slightly further to what was now my right, along the very edge of the wooded part of the hill next to fields. That hadn't been too interesting, so I decided to go back up the hill by a longer but more scenic route which I'd never walked before.
Immediately after a wooden gate across the path, I turned left, and followed a path through a small wooded area (there were occasional 'steps', and I passed some Yew trees here). The path then continued very gently uphill, following a broad grassy strip with mainly Yew trees on my right (the uphill side)
The short bit of road I had to walk below Watlington Hill
The path to Watlington Hill
The start of path I took up Watlington Hill for the first time, after I turned left beyond a wooden gate at the foot of the hill
The path up Watlington Hill
The path up Watlington Hill (this is the green strip below the Yew trees you could see in a previous photo)
Looking left
The path up Watlington Hill
After a while I reached a more open area, and the path then became rather vague as it turned right just past a couple of Silver Birch trees. This was much steeper, or at least it felt very steep to my now very tired legs. Looking back, there was an extensive view over Watlington and part of the Oxfordshire Plain, while looking left I could see Pyrton Hill and Shirburn Hill. At the top of the hill the path continued as a grass strip through a pleasant area of bush-covered downland. Rather than go through a gate and continue along a clear path, I went further left along a narrow continuation of the grass strip. This brought me to a gate and a road, which I just followed for a couple of yards before a short path brought me to the car park on Watlington Hill.
The path up Watlington Hill (it turns right to pass the far side of the Silver Birch trees)
Looking down to Watlington and the Oxfordshire Plain
Looking left to Pyrton Hill (more dark green Yews, I think) and Shirburn Hill (you can see another Red Kite flying just below the skyline at the left end of the photo)
The path continuing over Watlington Hill
The path continuing over Watlington Hill
Looking left to Pyrton Hill (as usual I spotted some Fallow deer there)
The path continuing over Watlington Hill
I've done many walks from Watlington Hill (too many really, I must try and find new places to walk) and this probably wasn't one of the best routes I've walked from there (not that it was a bad route, at all). But I enjoyed it because of the three or four sections that I'd only walked in the opposite direction before, and because of the new route I went up Watlington Hill (I've been meaning to try it for a couple of years now, but hadn't actually done so because it's slightly longer and I'm usually very tired when I get back here). I'd certainly be very happy to walk this route again some time.