ROUTE DESCRIPTION - Walk 2, Studham and Little Gaddesden
OS Explorer Maps required: 181,182
Approximate distance: 10.6 miles
Start at the car park on Byslips Road at Studham Common (OS Explorer 182, TL 026156)
CLOCKWISE
From the car park, walk away from the road along the top edge of Studham Common. In the far corner, follow the path going right and continue with Great Bradwin’s Wood on your left. At the end of the wood go through a gate and follow a right-hand fence through a paddock. Follow the waymark signs ahead to join a gravel drive that leads to a road. Carefully follow the road to the left, and keep on the road as it bears right at a junction. When the road bends slightly left, take a path on the left. Follow the field edge to the corner and turn right. At a waymark sign, the path switches to the left of the field boundary. On reaching the distant field corner continue following the field edge as short distance to reach a gate. Here the map shows the path going through the gate and continuing on the other side of the hedge - the hedge turns left and in the next corner the right of way returns to the left side of the hedge. However, currently, you may just have to ignore the gate and simply continue with the the hedge on your right. At the end of the field go ahead through a kissing gate and follow the hedge on your left through a pasture until you reach another kissing gate. Go through this and follow the path ahead to Bradden Lane (TL 032132). Jockey End, the main part of Gaddesden Row is about half a mile to your left at this point.
Don’t go into Jockey End, turn right instead and after a short distance take the path on the left. Follow the field boundary on your left, then go through a gateway and continue with a hedge now on your right. Go through a gap in this hedge and continue with the hedge on your left. In the field corner, enter Hoo Wood and follow the clear path going right, through the wood. On leaving the wood, continue ahead across a field on roughly the same line, to reach a projecting corner of the opposite hedgerow. Turn right and follow the path beside the hedgerow to reach the A4146, on the edge of Great Gaddesden (TL 030116).
Carefully cross the road and go through the wooden gate opposite. Follow the right-hand fence through a pasture, crossing over footbridges across the course of the river Gade, then follow the path half-left to the corner of the pasture. Cross the stile and follow the street to the right. It curves to the left, then take a path on the right (to the right of some garages). This goes half-right and uphill across another pasture to the corner. Continue on the clear path through the next pasture to a wooden kissing gate, then follow the path (between a left-hand fence and the edge of a wood on your right) through the next field to reach a lane in St Margaret’s, opposite the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery (TL 022115).
Turn left, but almost immediately take the footpath on your right which is initially on the driveway to a house (with the grounds of the monastery on the other side of the hedge on your right). Continue ahead on this clear path for about half a mile, as it descends to reach a road on the edge of Nettleden (TL 019105).
Turn right for a few yards and take the footpath on the right which gradually diverges from the road (initially heading towards a solitary tree). Follow this path for about a mile and a quarter, as it follows a valley bottom without passing any buildings or even field boundaries (at one point it passes to the left of a reservoir masked by bushes, though the map shows the right of way goes to the right of it). On finally reaching a fence, continue on the path half-left across the next field to reach the minor road through Little Gaddesden (TL 003122).
Go down Cromer Close almost opposite, continue on along an alley then take the footpath on the right to a playing field. Go half-left to the start of a path halfway along the side of the playing field, and follow the path through the woods. It crosses a minor path, then goes down a small bank to join a track leading downhill. On emerging from the trees onto a wide grass strip, turn right, initially on a gravel track. Almost immediately leave the gravel track, forking slightly right to follow a path along the wide grass strip. Eventually this approaches a tarmac drive (to Ashridge House, to your left) where the path curves right to follow the drive for a short distance. When the path meets the drive, go a few yards to the right and take a footpath that continues on the other side (at some wooden posts, a few yards to the right of a small parking area), now through trees. After about a third of a mile, the path reaches some garden fences/hedges on the right. After about another 100 yards, turn right (this path is waymarked as the Chiltern Way, which this walk now follows for most of the way back to Studham). The path crosses over a private road, and continues to reach the car park of the Bridgewater Arms pub, Little Gaddesden (SP 992137).
Turn right along the road, but almost immediately turn left on a footpath between fences. When this ends at a kissing gate, the path continues ahead diagonally right across a meadow, turning right when the meadow widens to the right. Cross the drive to Little Gaddesden church (to your left) and follow the path ahead across two pastures, and then across a much larger arable field, passing just left of an isolated tree in the far field corner, which is on the edge of Hudnall (TL 005135).
Go half left in the corner (ignoring the crossing path) and follow the field edge with initially wire garden fences on your right (the second garden usually has two aggressively barking dogs, so be grateful for the stout fence!). Follow the path as it descends alongside the field boundary back into the Gade Valley. Carefully cross the A4146 again, and continue on the path opposite, which follows a hedgerow on the left as it steadily climbs uphill. Towards the top of the slope, the path switches to the other side of the hedge and continues uphill on a wide track. Just after passing Ravensdell Wood the Chiltern Way goes right, but this walk continues ahead alongside a right-hand hedge. The path then joins a private drive which leads on to Common Road, Studham (TL 015154).
Continue on the footpath opposite, which goes downhill and half-right to the far corner of a field. Cross over Valley Road and follow the path along the bottom of the valley, with a hedge on your left. Continue past Studham School and some cottages. The path continues along an open grassy area – shortly before the bushes close in on either side, take the (unsigned) path going right, into the trees. Cross over a road and continue along the edge of Studham Common, to reach Byslips Road and the car park where the walk started.
Studham is the southernmost village in Bedfordshire, and borders both Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire (until 1897 part of the parish was in Hertfordshire). It appears in the Domesday Book as Estodham, and the village church was consecrated in 1220. Studham Commonis a 128 hectare area of land that escaped the enclosures acts. It is popular with walkers and horse riders as it is well-connected to surrounding rights of way. The common is divided into three by two roads – the western section contains many trees and bushes but the middle and eastern sections are mainly just grass as a result of their use for crops during World War II. The common is home to dormice, skylarks, sparrowhawks and green woodpeckers, among many other species. Orchids, including Bee Orchids, are among the numerous flowers that bloom here in the Spring and Summer months.
Until 1895 Nettleden was a hamlet within the parish of Pitstone in Buckinghamshire, though it was entirely surrounded by Hertfordshire. Its name comes from the Saxon for ‘valley of the nettles’. It sits in an attractive valley setting on the edge of Ashridge Common.
There has been a church at Great Gaddesden since Saxon times, as shown by the massive Hertfordshire puddingstones in the foundations. The fabric of the church also includes re-used Roman tiles. The first Rector was recorded in 1255. Gaddesden Place, the grand house on the hillside overlooking the village, was gutted by a fire in 1905, in which the butler died. The house has since been restored.
According to its web site, the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery “is a monastery in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism and a centre of teaching and practice. Its heart is a resident community of monks and nuns, whose life of meditation and work is open for visitors to share, as a living example of the Buddhist path. ‘Amaravati’ means ‘Deathless Realm’ in the Buddhist scriptural language, Pali, a verbal reminder of the highest spiritual aspiration.” There are usually about 60 people living there – 20 monks, 15 nuns and 25 guests.
Little Gaddesdenwas once in Buckinghamshire but is now in Hertfordshire. As well as Little Gaddesden itself, the parish includes Hudnall, Ashridge and part of Ringshall. The valley of Witchcraft Bottom is reputedly where the last witch in Buckinghamshire was tried and executed. A local man called John O’ Gaddesden was the physician to the Royal Household in the 14th century – he served the household at the same time as Geoffrey Chaucer and it is claimed the main character in The Doctor’s Tale was based on him. The house John O’Gaddesden lived in still stands in the village (though some claim this house dates to a later period).