Pete's Walks- Hambleden and Ibstone (page 2 of 4)
The bridleway curved slowly left then right over a distance of more than a mile, but generally headed northwest, soon moving from Gussetts Wood to another Great Wood (this one in Turville, rather than Hambleden). I saw another couple of Fallow Deer, which dashed across the path ahead of me. The bridleway was following a valley bottom, gradually descending between generally wooded slopes either side.
The bridleway in Gussetts Wood
Further along the bridleway, probably now in Great Wood (Turville)
The bridleway in Great Wood
The bridleway in Great Wood
Eventually I reached Dolesden Lane, where I went right for a couple of hundred yards or so, then took a path going half-left across a field to a crossing hedgerow. I turned right, and followed the hedge to the field corner where the path continued between bushes to reach the end of a short street in the village of Turville. I continued down the street to the village centre, with the church on my left and The Bull and Butcher pub to my right.
Dolesden Lane
The path from Dolesden Lane
The bridleway to Turville, with Cobstone Mill on top of the hill
Cobstone Mill stands on top of a hillside between Turville and Fingest. It overlooks a point where four smaller valleys meet and the Hambleden Valley starts southwards to the Thames. The white-painted, eighteenth-century smock mill is thus visible for some distance in several directions. Like the village of Turville below it, it is a popular setting for films and TV, and is probably best known as the windmill in the film ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.
View towards Fingest (I would later follow the near edge of the green sloping field to reach Fingest Wood on top of the hill on the right)
Turville
Turville church
Like Hambleden and Cobstone Mill, Turville is often used as a setting for films and TV. In recent years it has acquired a certain fame as the setting for ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ (a pleasant enough comedy that has its moments, and written by Richard Curtis whom I greatly admire, but how on earth was it recently voted third best British sitcom ever?). When I walked through here in 2005, the signpost for the Chiltern Way was pointing completely the wrong way – I heard later that it had been put back incorrectly by a film crew. There is an interesting story relating to the church in Turville. In 1900, an ancient stone coffin was discovered buried under the floor – when opened up, it was found to contain not only the body of a thirteenth-century priest, but also that of a seventeenth-century woman with a bullet hole in her skull! (Perhaps an earlier attempt to install a female vicar in ‘Dibley’ hadn’t been quite so successful!).
I turned left, and after a couple of hundred yards or so took a footpath on the right. This soon crossed a large field (containing the remains of a maize crop) half-left, went through a small corner of an open-access area on a steep hillside, then continued uphill through a small wooded area. I then reached another field of maize, this time with the crop still standing. A path went right and round a field corner, but I followed a fence that cut off the corner of the field (that is how the path is shown on the map and the way I've walked here before). On reaching the edge of the field I turned left, the path running some distance between the wire fence and a wood on my right. In a corner the path left the fence and went into the wood, almost immediately meeting another path where I went left. After a while I reached another path junction where I turned right, entering an area of mainly young trees (some of which had their trunks wrapped in plastic to protect them from deer).
Start of the path from Turville to Ibstone
The path from Turville to Ibstone
View from the path to Ibstone
The path to Ibstone
The path to Ibstone
The path to Ibstone, just after I turned right