Pete's Walks - Hambleden, Fawley, Stonor (page 1 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.
Google map of the walkDownload GPX file of the walk
NOTE: You now have to pay to use the car park in Hambleden. I usually manage to park along the village street to the west of the church (looking at the church from the village centre, take the street on the left and follow it round to the right).
I did this circular walk of about 13.9 miles on Sunday, 24th February 2019. It was a repeat of a walk I did in August 2016, but this time I did it in the opposite (clockwise) direction. There were a few paths and lanes, mainly around Fawley, that I would be walking in this direction for the first time. There are now only a handful or so of walks like this one, where I've walked the route either clockwise or anti-clockwise but not in the opposition direction, and for some curious reason three of them start at Hambleden. I thought it was about time I did one of them.
I parked in the village car park at Hambleden (Grid Reference SU 785866) and started walking about 9.50am. It was a beautiful day for a walk, there being a remarkably warm spell of weather at the moment (there would be some record temperatures for February set in the next couple of days, around 20-21C) and I would have nothing but clear blue skies throughout my walk. I followed the quaint street from the car park to the triangular village 'square' where I followed a street half-left to leave Hambleden and reach the main road through the Hambleden valley. Across this I started along a footpath that gradually rose uphill through part of Ridge Wood, curving slightly right as it went over the end of a ridge (the wood is aptly named!) and descended the other side. I was pleasantly surprised to spot a Hare running through the wood here. The path ended when it met a bridleway running along the southern edge of the wood, where I turned right. On leaving Ridge Wood the bridleway continued a few hundred yards between hedges either side to reach a bridleway T-junction.
The street from the car park in Hambleden
Looking back to Hambleden from the start of the path through Ridge Wood
The path rising up through Ridge Wood
The path after it starts to descend in Ridge Wood
The bridleway after I turned right, along the southern edge of Ridge Wood
The bridleway continuing westward from Ridge Wood
I turned right along a roughly surfaced track, passing a cottage on my left, then immediately turned left onto another bridleway. This rose up Reservoir Hill (I kept right at an apparent fork in the grass) to reach Great Wood. The gradient soon eased once I entered the wood - though it continued almost imperceptibly uphill for a few hundred yards. Altogether it was about a mile through this large Beech wood, but every step was very pleasant on this remarkably Spring-like day. Eventually the path left the wood and ran between hedges (the one on the right overhanging the bridleway most of the way) - there is a nice view to the left here, but I failed to get a decent photo as I was looking into the sun. The bridleway curved slightly left to reach a lane by a property named Round House in Fawley.
The bridleway up Reservoir Hill, heading to Great Wood (I took the right fork here)
Great Wood
Great Wood
Great Wood
Great Wood
Great Wood
The bridleway continuing from Great Wood To Fawley
Approaching Fawley