North Bucks Way

The North Bucks Way is a 35 mile walk which goes from the Ridgeway near Great Kimble to the Grand Union Canal Walk in Wolverton to the north-west of Milton Keynes, thus effectively joining up with the Ouse Valley Way at the Iron Trunk Viaduct.

It is slightly further than ideal from the Bedford South Premier Inn, our usual Sunday night stopping place between home and Milton Keynes, so we decided to walk at least the southernmost stage when we had a whole day in the area rather than just a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. Such a day came on 9th October 2016. As we drove steadily south from the Milton Keynes area (which would be in Buckinghamshire were Milton Keynes not a unitary authority), I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that we were heading off to start the North Bucks Way. However, Buckinghamshire is an unusual shape; it's further from north to south than from east to west, and the route of The Ridgeway does indeed cut across middle. To the south of the Ridgeway lies the South Bucks Way. We walked the next leg of the North Bucks Way on 11th December 2016 and we completed it on 22nd January 2017, also both occasions in which we had a whole day in the area. The fact that we walked the path in three well separated stages means that I find it quite difficult to visualise the route as a whole; however each of the individual days of walking was delightful, through beautiful countryside between the Chilterns and Milton Keynes.

The route is signposted, sometimes with rather boring metal signs saying "North Bucks Way" and sometimes with footpath/bridleway sign bearing the image of a swan with a coronet around its neck, attached to a chain; a swan in chains is also featured on the Buckinghamshire coat of arms, reflecting the fact that in Anglo-Saxon times, swans were bred in Buckinghamshire for the king's pleasure. That the swan is in chains illustrates that the swan is bound to the monarch, an ancient law that still applies to wild swans in the UK today.

However, signposts on the North Bucks Way only rarely bear a single sign; much of the time the route is shared with other paths. These paths all follow slightly different routes, joining together and then separating again in such a way that makes it rather difficult to follow a particular path on an Ordnance Survey map (we used Explorer sheets 181 and 192). A lot of the route is shared with one of the possible routes of the Midshires Way and we also encountered the Aylesbury Ring, the Swan's Way, the Thame Valley Walk, the Bernwood Jubilee Way. the Outer Aylesbury Ring (OAR), the Cross Bucks Way and the Milton Keynes Boundary Walk.

Click here for a description of our first day on the path.

Click here for all the photographs taken on the path.