Pete's Walks - Bradenham, Speen, Hughenden (page 1 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 did this circular walk of about 10.9 miles on Wednesday, 7th February 2024. It was a new route for me, although most of it was the same as the West Wycombe, Speen, Hughenden walk that I first did in April 2010. There were a few paths I'd never walked before, a couple I'd only walked once before (one of those had been in the opposite direction), the remaining paths I'd not walked since 2019 (except for the path across the top of the green at Bradenham, at the very start of the the walk).
I started walking about 9:50am, from the small car park in Bradenham (Grid Reference SU 827970) - the track leading to it was very badly pot-holed. I crossed the green, passing in front of Bradenham Manor and the village church, and then turned right along the road that runs through the village. It soon left the village, and continued rising gently uphill. Where it bent right, I took a path on the left (immediately after a very short section next to a wood) that crossed a paddock to reach a wood called The Coppice - this looked very gently uphill to me, and I couldn't understand why I was puffing and panting so much, but when I looked back it was steeper than I'd thought (though still not very steep). The path continued through the wood, going right when it appeared to come to a T-junction, until after several hundred yards it came back to the same road I'd just followed. Across the road the path continued through more of The Coppice - there were a couple of apparent forks in the path, but white arrows showed which way I had to go. The path then went down an alley between gardens, then I continued straight on down a side street to reach the road through Walter's Ash.
Bradenham
The path across the green, Bradenham
Bradenham church
The road from Bradenham (I took a footpath on the left roughly where the road goes out of view)
The footpath after I turned left from the road - it doesn't look steep here ...
... but this shot looking back from where the path enters the wood gives a more accurate impression
The path continuing through The Coppice
The path continuing through The Coppice
The path continuing through The Coppice, after crossing the road
I turned left along the road, and took the second footpath on the right (the first started down a side road I had to cross). This went down a hedge-lined track a short way until it ended at a drive or private road. I turned right along the drive, and when it turned left I took a foot path going straight on (this seemed to immediately fork but the forks came together after a few yards). Soon the path was running along the edge of a ploughed field, with a housing estate over the hedge on my right. Shortly after going past a solitary tree a little distance into the field on my left, I saw tractor tracks crossing the field. There was no sign or waymark, but I correctly guessed this was were the path crossed the field (I could see footprints along or between the tracks, and after I'd gone short way I could see there was no waymark further along the hedgerow). The path crossed the field to where, most unusually, a hedgerow started in the middle of the field, then continued along the far side of the hedgerow for a while. It then turned half-left to rise gently uphill to reach a corner of the field. I then went through a pedestrian gate and followed a wire fence on my right quite steeply downhill - there were views on both sides along an attractive valley. Beyond this field the path followed the right edge of a huge paddock (there were several horses a long way to my left) to reach a path junction in the valley bottom.
The road through Walter's Ash (the first footpath on the right starts along the road going right here, I took the second path on the right after another 100 yards or so)
The start of the footpath through Walter's Ash
The path from Walter's Ash from where it leaves a drive or private road (the two forks soon come back together)
The path from Walter's Ash
The path from Walter's Ash
The path from Walter's Ash
The path from Walter's Ash
View right from the path from Walter's Ash
View left from the path from Walter's Ash