On Sunday 17th January, twelve of us met up in Middle Assendon, surrounded by a light sprinkling of snow. Although the sky was rather grey, the Chiltern Hills looked rather nice, dusted with white.
Setting off from Middle Assendon, we followed Rectory Lane to Bix Bottom, where we stopped off to look at the remains of the Saxon church of St James. Then we began our first hill, following the Oxfordshire Way up through Freedom Wood to Maidensgrove Scrubs. The higher we got, the thicker the snow and more picturesque it became.
After passing through Lodge Farm, we made a slight navigational error and began following the Chiltern Way instead of the Oxfordshire Way. This led us into Park Wood, which looked quite beautiful with the snow, but following this route would have bypassed a large part of the walk, so we doubled back and re-joined our planned route.
Now following a much muddier route, we made our way through Maidensgrove and downhill through Pishillbury Wood. Uphill again to Pishill House and then downhill once more, past Pishill's Norman church.
Leaving the Oxfordshire Way we headed east along an undulating footpath to Turville Heath, stopping off at a high point to have our picnic lunch. Heading south through Summer Heath (looking very wintery) and then Southend, where we saw our second snowman of the day, we joined Shakespeare's Way, which we followed through Stonor Park.
The long and gentle descent through the park was inevitably followed by a very steep uphill slog to Coxlease Farm. Finally we made a gentle descent, via Paradise Wood, back to Middle Assendon. See our route on Bing Maps.
My GPS reckons we did 670m (2200ft) of ascent in total, but my legs feel like we did even more, what with all the slippery mud on the paths. Still, we should have burned off a few mince pies!
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