🥾 Walk 415 - Warburg Nature Reserve and Stonor Park

On Sunday 26th January, we had a joint walk with the Pang Valley Ramblers group, which was led by Alistair and Pauline. We had twelve on this walk, which wasn't bad considering the weather forecast had been for a rather wet day. In actual fact, the rain held off for all but the last half hour of the walk, and even then, it was just a drizzle.

Starting from Middle Assendon, we followed a quiet lane to the remains of the medieval church at Bix Bottom. From there we followed the Chiltern Way uphill through Freedom Wood and Maidensgrove Scrubs, part of Warburg Nature Reserve. At the top, we continued following the Chiltern Way downhill through Park Wood and across a large field to Stonor village.

Next we followed the footpath through Stonor Park, stopping first to admire the manor house that has been home to the Stonor family for 850 years. Our leader gave us a brief lecture on the history of house and park. We stopped again in the picnic area of the park to eat our packed lunches before continuing on the footpath and out of the park. (We didn't see any deer, despite it being a deer park. However, we did see a large number of crows.)

We left the park following Shakespeare's Way as far as Kimble Wood, where had to pass under a fallen tree, which judging by the freshness of the splintered trunk, must have been a victim of the recent Storm Brendan.

Our route double-backed so that we were now following a path that ran parallel to the one we'd taken through Stonor Park. At Coxlease Farm, we turned south and followed a ridge for about a mile before descending to the B480 road that runs through Middle Assendon. By now a light rain was falling, but we weren't far from the end of the walk. A short section of road walking brought us back to the cars. See our route on Google Maps.

We had started the walk promptly and not included a pub-stop, so we finished the 8-mile walk at around 2pm, before the rain had got going. The rain got steadily heavier as I drove home. I seem to remember the last walk Alistair and Pauline led for us also finished just before the heavy rain began. A pattern is beginning to form...

Thank you to Alistair and Pauline of the Pang Valley Ramblers for leading the walk and inviting us to join them.

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