Pete's Walks - Pitstone Hill, Dagnall, Ashridge (page 3 of 5)
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.
I continued along a drive past the church, on my left, and when the drive turned left beyond the churchyard I went straight on along a path across a meadow - as I got about halfway across the meadow there was a very nice view, looking back sharply left, towards the start of what becomes the Gade valley with a bit of the Vale of Aylesbury beyond. The path then ran for several hundred yards beside a stubble field, following a hedgerow on my left. At a path junction, close to a solitary tree in the corner of the field, I went straight on, passing a paddock on my right to reach a private road in Hudnall. I turned right and followed it to reach a crossroads, where I went straight on along St Margarets Lane (or at least that's what the far end of it is called). After a while this turned slightly left, and then I had a large grassy part of Hudnall Common on my left.
The path from Little Gaddesden church to Hudnall
View left to the start of the valley
The path from Little Gaddesden church to Hudnall
The path from Little Gaddesden church to Hudnall
I didn't take this path today, but I can never resist taking a shot of this solitary tree with the path running past it
The private road in Hudnall
St Margarets Lane (at least that's what the far end is called)
I then took a bridleway on the right, which passed through a small wooded section of Hudnall Common, continuing between a hedge on my right and the fence of a large paddock on my left. In the bottom of a small valley the bridleway turned left for a short distance, before turning right along a track to reach a stableyard. Here arrows and waymarks pointed the way to a gate, beyond which the bridleway went down a short path and across a courtyard to reach the road through Little Gaddesden. Here I went a few yards left and took a path descending through woods to Golden Valley. As the path turned left, a gentleman coming the other way told me he'd just seen some deer and a few yards further on I spotted four Fallow Deer in the trees to my right. The colour of the leaves on the beech trees here was quite spectacular (a foretaste of what was to come).
The bridleway through Hudnall Common
The bridleway as it leaves Hudnall Common
The bridleway after it turns left
The start of the path down to Golden Valley
The path down to Golden Valley
At the bottom of the slope I reached Golden Valley, a broad grassy swathe topped by woods on either side. I turned right along a track, then turned left after a hundred yards or so onto a crossing footpath. This led slightly uphill through the woods to reach a drive close to Ashridge House - which, as usual, I'll describe as a 'Gothic fantasy' (I think it's a management college nowadays). When I did this walk in 2009 I followed the drive that crosses imediately in front of the grand house, but today I chose to go right, to reach a white gate and a T-junction, where I turned left. Following this drive, a little further from the house, gave me a better opportunity to photograph it.
Golden Valley
The path from Golden Valley to Ashridge House
The drive (a permissive cycle track) past Ashridge House
Looking along Prince's Riding to the Bridgewater Monument at Ashridge
Ashridge House