Pete's Walks - North from Little Missenden (page 2 of 4)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps.
The path then followed a fence on my left past one or two properties, with a tall hedgerow on my right. It ended on a gravel drive (this point is marked Little Wood Corner on the OS map, I think that's a house name rather than a hamlet) where I turned left. After maybe a hundred yards I turned right along a path that started off along a track just inside the left edge of a wood. When I came to a path junction I turned left, this path running beside garden fences on my left with the tall hedge on my right overhanging to almost form a 'green tunnel'. After two or three hundred yards I reached the road through South Heath, where I turned right.
The same path, after the field in the last photo
A little further along the same path
The drive at Little Wood Corner
The path after I turned right from the drive
The path after I turned left in a bit of woodland
Further along the same path, now along the edge of properties in South Heath
After another two or three hundred yards I came to a junction where I turned right into a lane (this point is marked 'Ballinger Bottom (South)' on the OS map) that was running along a valley named Herbert's Hole. Just a short way along the lane I forked left onto a bridleway that started along the drive to Ballinger Hill House. After a short distance the bridleway forked slightly right from the drive, continuing pleasantly between hedges and fences with small fields either side, and with the valley now down on my right. After a quarter of a mile or so, the bridleway joined another drive that went slightly left past a couple of properties. Where this drive turned fully left, I took a footpath going right - I was now on a familiar path for the first time since leaving the road in Little Missenden, this path being part of the Chiltern Link and also part of a Buckland Common, The Lee, Chesham walk that I've done a couple of times. The path ran between fences and hedges, soon dropping back down into Herbert's Hole to rejoin the lane, where I turned left.
The road at South Heath
The start of the bridleway from "Ballinger Bottom (South)" - I can't think of anywhere else in the Chilterns named like this, it sounds like a parliamentary constituency! The drive goes to Ballinger Hill House, but the bridleway forks right from it after a while.
The bridleway from Ballinger Bottom (South)
The bridleway from Ballinger Bottom (South)
The bridleway from Ballinger Bottom (South)
The start of the path going right from the bridleway, towards Herbert's Hole
The path going right from the bridleway, towards Herbert's Hole
I immediately came to a junction where lanes went left and right. I went straight on along a bridleway that continued to follow the bottom of Herbert's Hole, with a wood on my right. After two or three hundred yards I reached a junction, where I turned right and followed a path uphill through the wood. At the path's end, I turned left along Little Hundridge Lane.
The bridleway through Herbert's Hole
The bridleway through Herbert's Hole
The path through the wood after I turned right from the bridleway through Herbert's Hole
Little Hundridge Lane