Wendover Woods, Wigginton and Aston Hill

Very good walk again today, on a delightfully sunny autumn day.

I parked at the car park in Wendover Woods, and took a track heading south through the woods to Boddington Hill, where I passed the site of another Iron-age hillfort. There were occasional good views out through the trees to my right, over Wendover and the flat expanse of the Vale of Aylesbury. I continued on the track, descending Boddington Hill, turning sharp right when it came to a junction, and reached Hale Lane. I followed this to the right for about half a mile, reaching the edge of Wendover, then turned left and then left again along Hogtrough Lane. 

I’d walked here before on a couple of long-distance paths. There were good views over the valley of The Hale on my left, with Boddington Hill prominent. Just past a farm, I turned left as The Ridgeway path started climbing steadily through Barn Wood. Near the top of the long slope I turned right on a short path, then left on a track, still in part of Barn Wood. Just after crossing another path, I turned left. This new path soon left the wood, and continued through a belt of trees with small ploughed fields either side.

For about the next four miles I roughly followed the line of Grim’s Ditch, an ancient earthwork. At first this was apparent as a raised bank, elseweher it was a larged ditch. I started following it through woodland, then along a short section of lane a few yards to the right of the earthwork. A footpath then followed the line of the earthwork through a field, a small wood and another smaller field. Then I followed a bridleway on the line of the earthwork, which was not at all evident here. The bridleway was on a farm drive that was also the county boundary, so I walked along the centre of the drive, imagining my left leg to be in Hertfordshire and my right in Buckinghamshire! Much of the rest of this section I’d walked before on the Chiltern Way, following Grim’s Ditch mainly along a thin belt of trees, eventually reaching the village of Wigginton.

I turned left to go through the village, stopping to have my lunch by a small playing field. On the far side of the village I turned left into Tring Park and followed King Charles Ride, a long level track above the steep slopes of the Chiltern Escarpment, named after Charles I who stayed at the grand house of Tring Park. On the far side of the park I followed some lanes through Hastoe, before turning right on a byway (curiously there are four connected byways here – Id be interested to know why they are all byways rather than bridleways). After passing a couple of houses it descended quite steeply through Grove Wood.

At the bottom of the slope, the byway continued as a track between hedges, with mainly paddocks either side. At a T-junction I turned right onto another similar byway. This passed a couple of houses, then continued on the other side of a lane. I turned left onto a path, now with the wooded slopes of Aston Hill ahead of me, and the slopes of Grove Wood and Pavis Wood over to my left. The path followed a hedgerow through two fields to a lane.

A little to the right I took another path, rising just inside the edge of a wood towards the top of Aston Hill. Initially there was a field to mt right, so occasionally there were good views out over the Vale of Aylesbury. Beyond the field, the path fully entered the wood and reached the top of Aston Hill. I then followed a fram drive to reach a road. on the other side, I followed a fairly level path that took me to the drive to the car park where I started.

This was a really good walk on a fantastic day. Lots of good sections through woods, interspersed with a few field paths. The remains of the Hillfort and Grim’s Ditch added historic interest. There were some good views out over the Vale of Aylesbury in a couple of places, and nice views elsewhere too, though the trees are not yet at there autumn best, being mainly still green.

I’m going to add photos of some of these Chiltern Walks I’ve been doing to the web site soon – they’ll do the walks more justice than my feeble descriptions!

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