{"id":"6984793f533dbb4b73118793","title":"Walk 490 Medmenham And Hambledon","path":"walks/scrapbook/by-year/2021/volume-38-oct-to-dec-2021/walk-490-medmenham-and-hambledon","contentMarkdown":"# 🥾 Walk 490 - Medmenham and Hambledon\n\nFourteen of us (including several visitors) met up on Saturday 18th December outside St Peter & St Paul Church in Medmenham for our last walk before Christmas. After taking the register (for track & trace purposes) the leader gave a short introduction to the walk, then one of our visitors mentioned that nearby Danesfield House had been used by the RAF during the Second World War as a base for their photographic interpretation unit. It turned out that the father of one of our members had flown photo-reconnaissance missions for them during the war. What a co-incidence!\n\nWe started the walk by heading uphill to Medmenham Camp, an Iron-Age Hillfort, which was hidden in woodland, and then made our way through Hog Wood to Pullinghill Wood, where there had been practice trenches during the First World War.\n\n![Hog Wood, near Danesfield Gardens Nursery.](https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume38/images/hog_wood.jpg)\n\nThe military aspects of the walk gave way to the literary, as we joined Shakespeare's Way, a long-distance path from Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire to the modern Shakespeare's Globe on London's South Bank. We didn't follow it for long, taking a parallel path into Hambleden, where we stopped to explore this picturesque village and to have our picnic lunch. Some also had tea and cake from the local shop.\n\nWe took a more direct route back, through farmland and woodland, emerging from Killdown Bank onto the main road into Medmenham. Then we followed a permissive path that took us away from the noisy road through countryside where we saw a small shooting party, hunting pheasants. The permissive path joined a public footpath leading us back to where we'd started, having covered 12.9 km (8 miles) with 520m (1700 ft) of ascent in total. Quite a hilly walk. See our route on Google Maps.\n\n![Shakespeare's Way, between Rogue's Plantation and Homefield Wood.](https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume38/images/rogues_plantation.jpg)\n\n*Thank you to Ruth for leading this walk.*\n\n## 📸 Back to Volume 38\n\nReturn to volume index","contentHtml":"<h1>🥾 Walk 490 - Medmenham and Hambledon</h1>\n<p>Fourteen of us (including several visitors) met up on Saturday 18th December outside St Peter &amp; St Paul Church in Medmenham for our last walk before Christmas. After taking the register (for track &amp; trace purposes) the leader gave a short introduction to the walk, then one of our visitors mentioned that nearby Danesfield House had been used by the RAF during the Second World War as a base for their photographic interpretation unit. It turned out that the father of one of our members had flown photo-reconnaissance missions for them during the war. What a co-incidence!</p>\n<p>We started the walk by heading uphill to Medmenham Camp, an Iron-Age Hillfort, which was hidden in woodland, and then made our way through Hog Wood to Pullinghill Wood, where there had been practice trenches during the First World War.</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume38/images/hog_wood.jpg\" alt=\"Hog Wood, near Danesfield Gardens Nursery.\"></p>\n<p>The military aspects of the walk gave way to the literary, as we joined Shakespeare&#39;s Way, a long-distance path from Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire to the modern Shakespeare&#39;s Globe on London&#39;s South Bank. We didn&#39;t follow it for long, taking a parallel path into Hambleden, where we stopped to explore this picturesque village and to have our picnic lunch. Some also had tea and cake from the local shop.</p>\n<p>We took a more direct route back, through farmland and woodland, emerging from Killdown Bank onto the main road into Medmenham. Then we followed a permissive path that took us away from the noisy road through countryside where we saw a small shooting party, hunting pheasants. The permissive path joined a public footpath leading us back to where we&#39;d started, having covered 12.9 km (8 miles) with 520m (1700 ft) of ascent in total. Quite a hilly walk. See our route on Google Maps.</p>\n<p><img src=\"https://www.berksww.org.uk/scrapbooks/volume38/images/rogues_plantation.jpg\" alt=\"Shakespeare&#39;s Way, between Rogue&#39;s Plantation and Homefield Wood.\"></p>\n<p><em>Thank you to Ruth for leading this walk.</em></p>\n<h2>📸 Back to Volume 38</h2>\n<p>Return to volume index</p>\n"}