Pete's Walks- Pitstone Hill and Wigginton (page 3 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 and GPX files.
On leaving the wood, the path continued along the bottom of the slight valley, through another large paddock. It then continued across two large meadows (good for wildflowers and butterflies in the summer months), before running a short way between hedges to reach a street in Wigginton. I went a few yards left, then entered the car park of some playing fields on my right. Here I turned right, to walk almost parallel to the street, and soon came to another street. Here I crossed over and went down a street opposite to reach a small park, where I stopped to eat my packed lunch on a bench (it was now about 12.35, a bit early for lunch but I couldn't think of anywhere else to stop further on along the route).
The path continuing from Lower Wood to Wigginton
The path continuing from Lower Wood to Wigginton
Path through the playing field in Wigginton
The park in Wigginton - I left it in the corner on the left
Lunch over, I continued round the edge of the park, leaving it at the diagonally opposite corner to where I'd entered it. I then continued down Fox Road. Immediately after the last house on the right I turned right onto a footpath, another part of the Ridgeway national trail which I would now be following for almost all the rest of the walk. There was a view to my left over part of the Vale of Aylesbury, with Ivinghoe Beacon a prominent feature (from here it almost obscures Pitstone Hill, which is directly in front of it from this angle). Further along the path I had a wood on my left, and after the third or fourth field I reached a lane called The Twist.
Fox Road, Wigginton
Pitstone Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon, from the edge of Wigginton
The path from Wigginton (the Ridgeway again)
The path from Wigginton (the Ridgeway again)
The path from Wigginton (the Ridgeway again)
A went a few paces right and took a footpath on the other side, running between a tall hedge and a wooden railing on my right. There was a pleasant view here across the 'Tring gap' (a valley that forms a break in the Chiltern escarpment) to where I'd been earlier around Aldbury, Tom's Hill and Norcott Court Farm. After a while the path went through two gates in quick succession, and shortly afterwards it crossed the impressive footbridge over the A41 dual carriageway. The path then went right and then left to reach the A4251 (the old A41 before the dual carriageway was built, and long before that it was the Roman 'Akeman Street').
The path after crossing the lane called The Twist
Looking half-right from the same spot as the previous photo - Norcott Court Farm is in the bottom right corner of the slightly brown field in the centre of the shot
The footbridge over the A41 - Pitstone Hill in the background, with Aldbury Nowers to the right
I crossed the road and went a short way right before taking a path on that side of the road (starting at the end of a small tarmac area). This path ran between a tall hedge of mature trees on my left, and the fence of some empty paddocks or pastures on my right. Further on there were such fences on both sides, and somewhere away to my right was Pendley Manor which is now a hotel. On reaching a lane, I turned left and followed it the short distance to its end in the hamlet of Tring Station. Here I went right, following the road through the hamlet and passing the actual station on my right.
The path from the A41 that passes close to Pendley Manor
The path from the A41 that passes close to Pendley Manor
The path from the A41 that passes close to Pendley Manor
The Grand Union canal at Tring Station
The road through Tring Station