Henley – Badgemore End – Lambridge Wood – Greys Court – Greys Green – Lower Hernes

1 July 2007

• Total distance: 6 miles
• Start point: Hop Gardens, west of Henley town centre SU 757828
• Weather: Windy, with big ripped dark clouds threatening rain. Sunny intervals in the late afternoon.
• Temperature at start: 19C.
• Muddiness rating: Diabolical ****** (=dry, *****=awful)
• People passed: Two incredibly muddy cyclists and three people walking.
• Step counter: 12444
• Camera: Sony Alpha 100, images before deletions = 97.

I’d spent the morning moping around the house drinking coffee, moaning about the weather, and offering my wife a range of insightful suggestions on how she could optimise her performance in the cooking, washing, ironing and hoovering which she was doing. Somewhat abruptly, she insisted I went out for a walk. Her way of expressing her gratitude for all the help, I suppose.

After the wettest June since 2536 BC, I made sure I had a waterproof bag. I find Tesco ones the best, but you could probably get a Lowepro one for £40 or so. As soon as it starts raining I get the camera sealed away. I doubt if a digital camera would respond well to a soaking, despite the fact that I accidentally treated one of my film cameras to a dunking once and it survived (though for a balanced opinion you’d have to ask the bloke I sold it to the following day).

The start of the footpath isn’t easy to spot, and the locals are probably fed up with finding ramblers in their gardens frowning over their OS maps. Well, it’s on your left, just before no 72 Crisp (sic) Road.

After half a mile it crosses Badgemore golf course, where I had the considerable satisfaction of seeing a chap overhit his twenty-yard bunker shot by at least 100 yards, then after a short stretch weaving through brambles the path enters Lambridge Wood. Usually this is a pleasant walk, but the beech leaves were covering ankle-deep mud so I teetered carefully through it until the path spilled out onto the narrow road near Greenmarsh Farm.

The grown-up choice at this point would have been to follow the road south, through the woods, before turning right onto the footpath which skirts the grounds of Greys Court. It's the dotted pink line on the attached map. However I couldn’t resist the temptation of another mile of treacherous slipping and sliding so instead took a byway over to Rocky Lane, and to the improbably named Pissen Wood. (Before you ask, I’ve scanned the map for a Pissen Down, but there isn’t one).

Crikey. If you’re of a sensitive disposition, or under 18, or over 35, or a Daily Mail reader, I urge caution before embarking on an internet search for any background on this place. In fact the only printable result I could find was:-

  Axel Olai Heikel, the Curator of Ethnographic Department 
  of the Finnish National Museum also visited the Livs. He 
  researched the territory inhabited by the Livs in the 
  northern coast of Kurzeme from Miķeļtornis (Pissen)
  through Mazirbe (Irben) up to Kolka (Domesnäs).

Greys Court is a National Trust property, a gabled 16th Century building on the site of much earlier buildings. Its gardens are noteworthy for their maze and kitchen garden, amongst other things. The place is open only from March to October, and then just on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday afternoons.

At the end of Rocky Lane it’s necessary to walk uphill a short distance along a narrow and busy main road, which is a shame, as the road apparently comes out of Henley and then promptly heads back in again, and thus has no purpose other than to allow a succession of Hooray Henleys to show each other how fast their Audi estates go.

Getting run over here would be especially tragic because the path back from Greys Green to Henley, passing beneath Rotherfield Greys, is one of the area’s nicest surprises. The best part of an hour’s winding stroll through rolling downland, with wind-rippling barley dotted with wild flowers and high beech outposts - it’s hard to believe you’re within a couple of miles of Henley Bridge.

Click here for map > GreysCourtmap

Grey’s Court history > http://www.touruk.co.uk/houses/houseoxf_grey.htm

Choose another walk > TheWalks

-- RodBird - 02 Jul 2007