Hill Farm - Colliers Lane - Bennett End - Radnage - The City - Stokenchurch

28 Dec 04

• Total distance : 6 miles (of which about 75% is on metalled road)
• Start point : Park in layby beside Hill Farm just past radio tower, 1 mile west of Stokenchurch on A40. SU 745972
• Weather : Cloudless, not too much wind, temperature at start +7C
• Muddiness rating (=dry, ******=awful) ***** in first mile, ** after that
• People passed : One couple, one female jogger with dog, both at Bennett End.
• Camera : Olympus C5060 digital compact. Images taken before deletions = 32

After several cloudless days we'd had a stormy night with heavy rain. The start of the lane down towards Bennett End, through Grove and Kingston Woods, is a pretty gluey prospect at the best of times, and today it was particularly bad. It wasn't the sort of day you'd want to find you'd left your walking boots at home. And guess what? D'oh. After half an hour of skating around, clutching my camera and any timber within grabbing distance, I was getting fed up. Then one spontaneous triple salchow with two half twists, thankfully unobserved by anyone, made my mind up for me. I abandoned my original plans to head through the woods to Crowell Hill and then down onto the Ridgeway, and stuck to Colliers Lane. Even that was easier said than done, and I had to make big diversions through the beeches to avoid submerging my slip-ons completely. Luckily beech woods provide a dry surface up until late winter - oak or ash would have been much more slippery.

Bledlow Ridge over Colliers Lane

Hoping for firmer ground - preferably tarmac - I headed off the path, up to Mallards Court, and then down a reasonably dry, scenic track which rejoined Collers Lane. This area is renowned for red kites and there were at least ten in view at times, often conducting mock fights or courtship displays overhead. Usually they seem to be more in evidence on windy days than on still ones.

Waterend, near Stokenchurch

By now I was seriously doubting if my shoes would ever be wearable again, so I eschewed the chance of walking over to the curious little square-towered church at Radnage, and instead slithered off in the general direction of The City. I can't think of anywhere less deserving of the name "The City" than this tiny conurbation. "The Couple of Houses Miles From Anywhere" would be a better name.

Anyway, I didn't hang around to argue my case with the City-dwellers, but followed the main road back through Stokenchurch. In more appropriate footwear I'd have taken the direct footpath across the fields. Apart from the obligatory Astra full of lads having a crack at the sound barrier there was virtually no traffic. Kites vectored around the evening-lit chimneys of the little town, probably wondering why the man below them was walking so strangely.

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-- RodBird - 31 Dec 2004