Syresham to Buckingham

I only had to travel from Sherington for today's walk, but Richard was coming all the way from Denver. We decided that it was best for him to travel after the rush hour so we agreed to meet at 11 am in Buckingham (in a useful layby at SP706343). In fact we arrived just minutes apart at around 10.50. We left one car in this layby and drove the other to Syresham, where there was plenty of on-street parking. It must have been around 11.30 when we set off. The weather was rather dull, but it remained dry all day.

The Ouse Valley Way did not get off to the best of starts. We passed the Kings Head pub (the official start of the path, currently for sale) and walked out of Syresham, turning left at the Wellingtonia tree, which was apparently planted in 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The footpath heading south that we were looking for was indicated by a footpath sign, but we had to climb over a rickety field entrance (made up of several sections of fence tied together) to get to it, and when we got to the other end of the muddy field we discovered that the route out of the field (again signposted) was completely overgrown. In trying to hack a way through, Richard's glasses were knocked off and we spent several minutes finding them; we decided to give up on this bit of path! We retraced our footsteps a short distance then cut through to an adjacent field, which had an entrance onto a farm track. This entrance was also barred by sections of fence tied together; I refused to do any more climbing so we untied them, walked through, then retied the various tatty pieces of string.

We turned left onto the concrete farm track and realised that the overgrown field exit would have emerged exactly here. We powered along the track, passing over the A43 and then over the infant River Great Ouse, so from Northamptonshire to Buckinghamshire. We were looking for a footpath to the right and there should have been several footpaths in the area, but none were signposted or obvious. We took what might have been the right route, a narrow passageway between two barbed-wire fences. It was uneven walking, with a selection of hummocks, brambles and old barbed-wire fencing at our feet. Richard went ahead to see if it got better or worse, discovered the route completed barred by barbed-wire, then fell over and lost his glasses again. After finding his specs, Richard headed back to me and we both picked our way back to the farm track. I was all for giving up on the Ouse Valley Way completely; Richard reminded me that he had seen that there were no footpaths marked in this area on Open Street Map, but that it got better soon, and persuaded me just to follow the road rather than the footpath for the first kilometre or so.

We retraced our steps back along the farm track, over the River Great Ouse (so back into Northants) and over the A43, then we stayed on the track as it branched to the left to join the minor road we had driven along. It was a quiet and perfectly pleasant road. We turned left, back over the A43 and back over the River Great Ouse at Biddlesden Bridge, where our progress back into Buckinghamshire was marked by an old-fashioned county boundary sign. We climbed up through the attractive hamlet of Biddlesden, being rejoined by the official Ouse Valley Way route. All this fuss and we had only progressed about a mile! We stayed on the road for about half a mile, passing Biddlesden Park with an attractive lake, then we turned left onto a much more promising footpath.

We parted company with the drive to Abbey House but our route was a well signposted green track, heading clearly for a gap in the middle of Whitfield Wood. We walked through the wood and stopped for lunch, sitting on our waterproofs on the ground. As we ate we could see our route over/through a succession of stiles/kissing gates, but we were not paying sufficient attention as we set off, so went slightly wrong. Reaching a field boundary with no exit point gave us the clue that we'd made a mistake and we were soon back on track. We had to walk around some fields where the route straight across (as indicated by the map) was unclear and/or muddy, but there was some delightful walking through fields of sheep. We reached another farm drive, being passed by a very helpful woman in a car, who checked that we were confident of our route (at this precise moment we were...).

We crossed a minor road and took a track towards Stowe, past a lake, Stowe School's Equestrian Centre, and some llamas. We emerged on the main drive in front of the School (whose main building is the Palliadian Stowe House) and turned left for a short distance to take a closer look, before turning round and walking along a dead straight driveway for about a kilometre. I'd assumed that the drive was straight by Palladian design, but from the map it appears that this was an older Roman road. Some of the School's buildings are distinctly less attractive, but more recent architecture is clever, a modern take on Palladian. Security seemed particularly tight, with close-circuit TV and a security man who was talking to another policeman; we were left wondering which foreign royal or business tycoon has a child at the school.

As we approached Oxford Water, complete with picturesque bridge, we passed a matching pair of temple-like structures and turned left on a path that swept around through the estate (with suitably picturesque sheep and cattle) to the Corinthian Arch. We turned right, away from the house (neatly 'framed' by the arch) and stopped for refreshments and a rest at a picnic bench. I'd expected to have to walk along Stowe Avenue, which is attractive (another dead straight drive, this time I imagine built to complement the vista of Stowe Hall and the Corinthian Arch) but quite busy, so I was pleased to discover an attractive path running parallel with Stowe Avenue almost all the way to Buckingham. There were atmospheric, misty views back to the Arch.

About a mile from the Corinthian Arch we passed between another matching pair of Palliadian buildings and emerged into the hustle and bustle of Buckingham. We turned left into the town centre, passing a sign indicating that we were now on the Ouse Valley Path, the Chantry Chapel, the Old Gaol, and lots of schoolchildren on their way home from school. We found the Nelson Street Restaurant, where we had a table booked for an evening meal, then walked back to the car. We needed to collect the other car from Syresham which required us to get out the other side of Buckingham, a very pleasant town but a real traffic bottle-neck, and the rush hour was approaching. We therefore drove around by way of the A421 (Buckingham's southern bypass) then through Tingewick, Water Stratford and around the edge of Stowe.