Ridgeway near Great Kimble to Waddesdon

It was rather a long drive from the Bedford South Premier Inn to and from today's start and end points, but the iPad maps app took us an interesting and attractive route from Milton Keynes by way of the pretty villages of Mursley, Swanbourne, Whitchurch and Pitchcott to Waddesdon, where we parked one car in a lay-by at SP750168. We then drove on, around the backstreets of Aylesbury then down increasingly minor roads through Bishopstone and on to Little Kimble, where we turned right onto the A4010 for a short distance to a lay-by at SP826058. It was a lovely sunny autumnal morning and we started walking around 9.45.

The lay-by is right on the North Bucks Way, but it is not quite at the southern end of the trail, so we started by following a track which climbed up to the Ridgeway, soon becoming a classic sunken chalky track through woodland, with good views to the Vale of Aylesbury. It's about half a mile to the route of the Ridgeway National Trail, but we went just slightly further before retracing our steps. We were close to Chequers so half expected to see the Prime Minister (currently Theresa May) out for a walk with her husband...

We crossed the A41 and headed across a field towards Old Grange. There were ancient Earthworks of some sort in the field, and red kites flying overhead. I have never quite managed to photograph a red kite in flight; they may be just gliding on thermals. but they move quite fast! I did a bit better on this occasion, but I still haven't managed what you'd call a good photo of a red kite. The horses and alpacas in the field we were walking through were rather easier to photograph. A woman walking towards us asked for directions; it's strange how often this seems to happen when we really don't know the area.

We crossed a little railway line and a ploughed field, and continued across agricultural land for a mile or so, on a route shared with the Midshires Way then also the Aylesbury Ring, then also the Swan's Way. We turned right and walked on to Bishopstone (which we had driven through earlier). We stopped for lunch, sitting on a bench on the main road, then turned onto a track past a bungalow-owner who was out brushing her drive.

We turned left and eventually passed through the hamlet of Sedrup; we had already passed a number of horse riders and several thatched cottages and the two came together when we encountered a group of adults who were leading children on horses and then helping them to dismount in front of a group of thatched cottages.

We emerged onto the A418 at a corner we'd driven around. We passed a pub and then took the drive towards Hartwell House, now a luxury hotel. We passed over a strange bridge, topped with stone figures (chess pieces?). As we continued to walk through the Hartwell Estate, the Church was signposted off to the right, so we went to investigate.

The route through a little graveyard was obvious, but we met an Estate wall at the end and it wasn't clear whether we should turn right or left to reach the Church. We could see a tower in the undergrowth on the other side of the wall, but this was a folly not the Church. We turned right, which indeed turned out to lead in the correct direction; soon we could see the elaborate (Gothic Revival) St Mary's Church on the other side of the wall. We reached a gate in the wall, but it was locked and as we walked on to see if we could approach from the other direction, we encountered a "private" sign. Ah well, so you can't get to the Church; it appears that it is now a ruin with no access to the inside in any case, but it would have been nice to have a view without that wall.

We retraced our steps to the route of the North Bucks Way and soon encountered another architectural curiosity, "The Egyptian Well", a folly built in 1850. We turned left and cut across fields to Upper Hartwell, then resumed our walk across agricultural land, now rather more undulating than this morning.

From Waddon Hill Farm, where we turned left, there were good views to Aylesbury, whose centre is only a couple of miles from here, with the outskirts only about half a mile away. We descended to the River Thame, and joined the Thame Valley Walk. We were close to the medieval village of Eythrope and approaching Eythrope Park, still owned by the Rothschild Family after it was bought by Alice de Rothschild in 1875, presumably to be close to her brother Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild who owned the neighbouring Waddesdon Manor. We meandered around by the river (which has been dammed, presumably to provide an artificial lake for the benefits of the occupants of the big house), passing the attractive Weir Lodge and with "The Pavilion" occasionally peeping out from behind the trees.

From Eythrope Park, we climbed up Waddesdon Hill, with excellent views opening up behind us. As we descended the other side of the hill the views were to Waddeson Manor, now a National Trust property which I remember vaguely from when the children were small; we'll have to go back. For now we left the route of the North Bucks Way on the outskirts of Waddesdon and returned to the car. The journey back to Great Kimble was straightforward, but the journey from Great Kimble to Bedford was something of an adventure, as the iPad maps app took us down minor roads in a direction which was clearly sensible but which we really didn't know at all. It had remained dry all the time we were walking, but it had turned increasingly cloudy and when we were driving it started to rain, so our timing had been good!

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