On Sunday 13th April a lovely group of 23 people assembled at the recreation ground of Whitchurch Hill ready for Hazel and Anne's 10 mile circular walk. We started off walking along a road with some of the original houses of Whitchurch Hill village and past the well which was sunk in 1853 by Samuel Weare Gardiner to provide the locals with clean drinking water. We soon turned off the road and joined the Chiltern Way Extension footpath which had some glorious rural vistas, complete with a few bluebells, cowslips, cows and their calves.
There were a few nerves about which fields on the walk the cows would or would not be occupying and luckily we only had a very small section of a field that was shared by our four legged friends and fortunately they didn't seem to spot us until most people had got through the gate into the next field.
We passed through a lovely avenue of trees with white blossoms at Collins End. We then enjoyed the hamlet's beautiful old buildings, including Holly Copse, which was originally a pub hundreds of years ago and reputedly served Charles I in 1647.
We stopped for some delicious mini hot cross buns kindly supplied by Hazel opposite Step Cottage, the cottage used by the German collaborator, Joanne Grey, in the famous film The Eagle has Landed. We continued up the hill having a lovely view of the Thames and down into Mapledurham behind us. As we entered the Mapledurham woods we were delighted to see that the bluebells were in full bloom.
The historical village of Mapledurham has been used as a location for several films and television programmes, most notably and extensively in The Eagle has Landed, and Midsomer Murders (A Grain of Truth), and the first Black Sabbath album cover features Mapledurham Mill. We had our lunch on benches scattered around the Church yard and made use of the one outside Church toilet.
As we left our lunch spot the weather turned and the promised rain arrived. We had a short, sharp hill to climb up Straw Hill, at the top of the Hardwick Estate. The views are stunning over the River Thames but the rain put the dampeners on that unfortunately so we had a quick Easter egg as a reward for getting to the top of the hill and then quickly entered the woods.
There are many permissible paths cut into the Hardwick Estate woods so we followed one of these until we reached the Ice House. This may have been used as an ice house, or a bear pit, an air raid shelter, but was most definitely a folly at some point. A few minutes further on we came to a second folly, The Baulk, which has some lovely flint towers and have now been joined by a rather magnificent unique house.
Hardwick Hall itself was not visible from the woods (in fact it is not visible from Hardwick Lane either) but was once home to the inspiration for Mr Toad from Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows. Sir Charles Rose, the owner, was a banking friend of Kenneth Graham and was into fast cars, yachts, and gambling amongst other things. His house was and still is a great example of an Elizabethan mansion.
We walked down to Hardwick Lane and along the quiet lane past the award winning Bozedown Alpaca farm. After the alpacas had posed for some nice photos we entered Whitchurch village and eagerly made our way to the Greyhound Inn, a beautiful old pub with beams and low ceilings and a large terrace garden out the back, for a quick drink and comfort break.
Suitably refreshed we set off on the last leg of the walk between Whitchurch and Whitchurch Hill which, as the name implies, meant one more hill to climb. The sun had come back out for the walk through the pretty village of Whitchurch and many a front garden was admitted for dazzling displays of Spring flowers. Thanks to everyone who came on the walk and enjoyed a typical April day of sunshine and showers.
Thanks go to Anne and Hazel for leading this walk and to Anne for writing it up.
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