Pete's Walks - Maidensgrove Common, Watlington Hill, Northend (page 5 of 5)
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 crossed Hollandridge Lane and followed a path through a meadow to reach College Wood. Just inside the wood I came to a path junction where I turned left. For a while this path ran close to the edge of the wood on my left, but then it turned right and dropped downhill a short way before turning left and gradually descending through the wood. It reached a valley bottom just before it left the wood, and then continued beside a fence on my left along the valley bottom for several hundred yards until it reached the road through Pishill.
The path from Hollandridge Lane to College Lane
The path through College Wood
The path through College Wood
The path through College WoodT
The path through College Wood
The path continuing from College Wood to Pishill
The path continuing from College Wood to Pishill
I turned right along the road, then almost immediately turned left into the lane to Pishill church. There was a short steepish uphill, then it flattened out just after the church (on my right). There was a nice view half-left towards the deer park around Stonor House (though I prefer the opposite view, from the deer park to here). Somewhere here the lane ended and a bridleway followed the drive that continued ahead. Soon there was a bridleway junction where the drive curved right, where I took the bridleway going straight on. This followed a tall hedgerow on my left, and soon dropped quite steeply into a valley. Soon after starting up the opposite slope the bridleway entered a large wood. The OS map shows Pishillbury Wood to the left and Doyley Wood to the right - there is a fence on the right (for at least some of the way), so I think the bridleway follows the boundary between these two woods. The bridleway went more or less straight up the slope, so it was quite steep, but it didn't go on for too long and was no worse than many similar paths in the Chilterns. After it flattened out, I went straight on where a path came in on the left, then after another one or two hundred yards I turned right at a second junction (the OS map shows these two junctions as a crossroads). This path soon left the wood and continued down a private drive in Maidensgrove. The far end was closed to traffic (I assumed not for pedestrians), I'm not sure if this was for roadworks or more storm damage. I then turned right along the lane through the village and followed it back to where I'd parked.
The lane to Pishill church
View from near Pishill church towards the deer park at Stonor
Pishill church
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove, climbing up through the woods
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove, climbing up through the woods
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove, climbing up through the woods
The bridleway from Pishill to Maidensgrove
The private drive at Maidensgrove
Pond on the edge of Maidensgrove Common
Maidensgrove Common
This walk worked out very well for me. At 10.5 miles it was only a mile or so shorter than my intended route, and despite starting a little later than I'd anticipated I still finished comfortably before it grew too dark. I also beat the rain - it just started drizzling as I changed out of my walking boots. I thought it was a good route too - apart from the path to Northend that I'd only walked once before, there were many paths that I hadn't walked in this direction for many years (I've already mentioned the ones from Fire Wood onwards, but there was also the section from Cookley Green towards Dame Alice Farm). I definitely made the right decision to visit the top of Watlington Hill as that required very little extra effort and gave comfortably the best views I had all day.