Pete's Walks - Bradenham, Speen, Hughenden (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.
Lunch over, I followed a lane along another side of the cricket pitch. A little after this turned left a footpath started on the right (a fingerpost showed where a bridleway started a little further along the lane), going a few yards down a driveway to a metal kissing-gate, then following a hedge on my right through a small enclosure. I'm fairly sure I've only walked this path once before, back in 2008. The path then stayed beside the hedge through a huge open field (part of Downley Common according to the OS map), where there was a far-reaching view over a very wooded section of the Chilterns. The path then dropped downhill a short way through Lee's Wood. At a path junction in the valley bottom I stopped and briefly considered shortening the route I'd planned by taking a path going straight on. My legs were a bit tired, but I decided to stick to my original plan, so turned left along a broad strip of grass with the wood either side. This brought me to a surfaced drive (from Cookshall Farm), where I turned left (now back on more familiar territory). Where the drive turned left, I went straight on through a parking area and past a couple of huts on my right and followed a path downhill, with a nice view ahead of me towards the area around West Wycombe. The path crossed a track, rose uphill slightly through a small plantation, then followed a hedge on my right. It went through another small plantation, then continued downhill along the right edge of a field, heading towards a railway line.
The footpath from Downley
The footpath from Downley
View from near Downley - not a great shot, but it shows how wooded this part of the Chilterns is
The path from Downley, now in Lee's Wood
The path after I turned left in Lee's Wood
The drive from Cookshall Farm
The path heading towards West Wycombe
The path heading towards West Wycombe
The path heading towards West Wycombe
I then turned right along a path next to the railway line, so I had the railway embankment on my left and a hedgerow to my right (I'd only walked this path by the railway once before, in the opposite direction). After about a third of a mile I reached a path junction (just after a seat) where I turned right. This path rose steadily uphill through Kit's wood (I spotted a Muntjac here but had no chance of getting a photo) and turned left at the top of the slope - I hadn't been looking forward to this last uphill of the walk, but it wasn't too bad at all. After a while the path widened when it merged with another path, coming in sharply from the right, and a few hundred yards later I came to a path junction where I went straight on (I normally turn right here).
The path alongside the railway, after I turned right
The path alongside the railway
The path rising up through Kit's Wood, after I turned right
The path rising up through Kit's Wood
The path through Kit's Wood
The path through Kit's Wood
The path gradually turned from north to northwest, and at some point I moved from Kit's Wood to Pimlode's Wood. Part of this latter wood had been felled recently, but beyond that there was a nice bit of Beech wood as the path dropped downhill. There was a small area of conifers just before I reached a track and the wall around Bradenham Manor, where I went left and made my way back to the car park where I'd started.
The path through Kit's Wood, just after the path junction where I went straight on
The path continuing through Pimlode's Wood
The path continuing through Pimlode's Wood
The path continuing through Pimlode's Wood
The path continuing through Pimlode's Wood
The path beside the boundary wall of Bradenham Manor
This was an enjoyable walk, despite the generally grey conditions. It was nice to walk a few new paths, and to repeat a couple I'd only walked once before. A lot of the route was the same as my West Wycombe, Speen, Hughenden walk, but it's been a few years since I last did that so none of the route seemed overfamiliar to me. It was nice to see the Primroses (even if they were probably escaped garden ones) as it means that Spring isn't too far away.