Pete's Walks - Chinnor Hill and Stokenchurch (page 1 of 4)
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 walk of about 8.5 miles on Wednesday, 24th July, 2024. It was a repeat of a walk I did about eight months ago (in November 2023).
I parked at the car park on Chinnor Hill (grid Reference SP766003) and started walking about 9.50am. I took the bridleway that headed down Chinnor Hill, which was surfaced as far as a cottage but then become a sunken lane (showing it must be centuries old). The gradient was fairly gentle, but it seemed to go on a long time.
The start of the bridleway down Chinnor Hill
The bridleway down Chinnor Hill
The bridleway down Chinnor Hill
The bridleway down Chinnor Hill
The bridleway down Chinnor Hill
The bridleway down Chinnor Hill
Near the bottom of the hill a wide track crossed the bridleway, where I turned left onto a bridleway that is part of the Ridgeway national trail, which I would now follow for about three miles. It ran through woodlandfor a few hundred yards, then it became very chalky as it passed some residences on the left with a hedge on the right. Where a track came in on the right, there was a view to Chinnor and beyond. As I then reached a road, there was a parking area on the right which was obviously well used - I had considered parking here instead of on Chinnor Hill, partly because it would slightly split up the long section along the Ridgeway and partly because the lane to the Chilton Hill car park is narrow with few passing places.
The Ridgeway national trail
The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway near Chinnor
View right to Chinnor and beyond from the Ridgeway
After crossing the road I continued along the Ridgeway. At first it was quite chalky, but later it became more grassy - I was just glad that it was nowehere near as muddy as it had been last November! There were tall hedgerows either side, so I didn't often get any views, but I was aware of the wood-covered Chiltern escarpment over to my left. I always think of the Ridgeway here as being flat, but there were some very slight ups and downs. Somewhere along here I chatted to a couple of walkers coming the other way who were walking all of the Ridgeway (they were going as far as Princes Risborough today), and I was able to identify a couple of wildflowers they'd photographed. About a mile and a half after the first road I crossed a second road. The Ridgeway continued between hedgerows and at one point I spotted my first Gatekeeper butterflies of 2024. After about another half mile, I turned left onto another bridleway that headed to the wooded Aston Hill.
The Ridgeway, after the first road crossing
The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway
The Ridgeway, after the second road crossing
The Ridgeway
Gatekeeper butterflies (the flower is Marjoram)
The Ridgeway, shortly before I turned left onto a bridleway