Pete's Walks- Hambleden, Stonor, Fawley (page 7 of 7)
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.
The bridleway then carried on between hedges and fence until it reached Great Wood (which I'd also walked through much earlier on this walk). The bridleway continued through the wood for about another mile - it was a bit muddy in places, which was notable as almost everywhere else today was dry.
The bridleway continuing towards Great Wood
Great Wood again (I was in another part of it earlier on the walk)
The bridleway continuing through Great Wood
The bridleway continuing through Great Wood
The bridleway continuing through Great Wood
The bridleway continuing through Great Wood
The bridleway continuing through Great Wood
When the bridleway finally left the wood, it dropped downhill, with views ahead and to my right over part of the Thames Valley. When I reached a surfaced track I turned right, soon passing a cottage on my right, and then turned left onto a bridleway. This ran between hedges for a short distance, but then ran just inside of Ridge Wood which rose uphill on my left. After several hundred yards I forked left onto a footpath (Note: a track had forked left some way before this - the footpath comes in at a kissing-gate in the hedge, to cross the bridleway). The path rose uphill a short way through the wood (I went straight on where a bridleway went left) before gradually descending to reach a lane junction. Here I went straight on to reach the centre of Hambleden, where I turned right to return to the car park.
The bridleway after leaving Great Wood, descending into the Thames Valley (you can just glimpse the river just left of the top of the big tree on the right)
The bridleway along the southern edge of Ridge Wood
The bridleway along the southern edge of Ridge Wood
The start of the footpath through Ridge Wood
The footpath through Ridge Wood
The footpath through Ridge Wood
The lane into Hambleden
Hamble Brook, on the edge of the village - this is looking south towards the Thames Valley
Hambleden (used as a setting in countless films and TV shows)
I enjoyed this walk, but that's hardly surprising as it was such a fine day for walking and the route included at least two of my favourite paths in the Chilterns. I'm glad I finally made the effort to explore a bit of the area around Fawley - I've looked at doing this several times in the past (it was the biggest remaining gap in my mental map of the Chilterns), but have always found it difficult to come up with a route that didn't include at least one long stretch of lane walking. There seem to be relatively few footpaths or bridleways here, so this rather convoluted route was eventually the best I could manage. For that reason, I doubt I'll be visiting Fawley too often in the future. The new route I took out of the Hambleden valley was quite pleasant, apart from some of it being a surfaced drive, so I'll probably use it again sometime (although I already have two or three options to choose from anyway).