Middle Assendon - Bix Bottom - Warburg Nature Reserve - Maidensgrove - Stonor - Southend - Fawley Bottom

17 Sept 2005

• Total distance : 8.5 miles, including about 6 miles on metalled or gravel surface. It felt further.
• Start point : In the long parking area at the side of the road in Middle Assendon, two miles north west of Henley, SU 739857.
• Weather : Perfect for walking. Patchy sun, pleasantly warm.
• Temperature at start 18C.
• Muddiness rating (*=dry, *****=awful) * No problem on the day and unlikely to present difficulty at any time. The field on the western border of Stonor village gets ploughed regularly so that's likely to be the worst bit. It's sticky rather than treacherous.
• People passed : One shooting party, plus the odd Landrover and Jag. No walkers.
• Step counter : 18191
• Camera : Olympus C-5060W. Images taken before deletions = 77.

Given a choice, I'd usually opt for a new walk over one I'd done before. Despite knowing the area well I realise there are thousands of new views and unexplored corners waiting for me, and the pleasure of discovering somewhere that can be brought alive in the camera, in a particular season or light, is a joy to any landscape photographer. Yet from time to time I feel the need to follow a familiar route, checking out how it's changed and enjoying the unrolling countryside without need to consult the map. It's never repetition: each day brings a new and unique combination of light and sky and growth. Sometimes a scene begs to photographed where previously I'd passed by, uninspired.

I've probably walked this circuit ten times and I hope to do it another fifty. I get back tired but fulfilled, my thighs aching but my wallet unlightened, encouraged that an area so close to the urban inanities of the Thames Valley can remain so unchanged, and determined to ensure that it never falls prey to the developers who'd undoubtedly welcome the building of a Bix Bottom Conference Center and Spa or somesuch.

Barrages of shots echoing along the valley announced the presence of a shooting party, and I found them near the ancient ruin of St James's church, twelve-bores at the ready, playing the country squires in their clean new Barbours and peppering the sky every few minutes when a flock of partridges burst over the hill. Tiny fluttering corpses plummeted around me, bouncing along the road or crashing into the hedgerows until the waiting dogs retrieved them. Oh well, these poor folk would be glad to have a bit of meat in the pot later. Life's grim in the City.

At the end of the valley lies the Warburg nature reserve, an idyllic little spot with an abundance of wild flora and fauna. It was left to the Berks, Bucks & Oxfordshire Naturalists Trust (now BBOWT) in the 1960's by a lady called Vera Paul. I assume from the name that she had a connection to the Warburg firm of investment bankers, but the BBOWT website says that she was ".. not a typically wealthy woman, but was passionate about wildlife" so I may be wrong. She died in 2001 and left a substantial endowment to meet the expenses of running the reserve. She was obviously a generous woman and my only - carping - grumble is that the name "Warburg" doesn't sit easily among the surrounding villages of Bix, Catslip and Fawley. I'd have been quite happy with the Vera Paul Reserve to be honest.

The climb through the reserve to Maidensgrove always surprises and knackers me. Halfway up I flopped to the ground and sat for a few minutes, crushing wild marjoram between my fingers. At the top the path is easy to lose - turn right into the farm and then immediately left once through the gate, then right again once in the ploughed field. There's a baffling sign erected by some misguided soul who presumably thought it would help. Ignore it.

The path passes through a wood of fine big beeches before dropping down to the village of Stonor. Until a few years ago Stonor had a nice pub - called, unimaginatively, The Stonor Arms - but after a number of unsuccessful reinventions as various flavours of gastropub it's closed down. It'll make a nice house for some lucky family: let's hope they make full use of the attached bowling alley. So head up the road for a little way before turning through a gate into the grounds of Stonor House.

The Stonor family have lived here for at least 800 years, and today it's the home of Lord and Lady Camoys. The building dates from 12th century but the majority of the house was built in the 1300's. In Tudor times red brick was used to conceal the earlier buildings and produce a uniform facade. During the 18th century the windows and roof were remodelled to give the house the Georgian appearance seen today. The place has a long history (see link at the end) but its appeal to skinflints like me who decline to shell out the £6 entry fee lies entirely in the grounds, the marvellous position in a dry Chiltern valley and the unusually picturesque conifer plantations at the top of the valley. There are always red kites overhead, and often the estate's herd of deer can be seen grazing nearby.

The gradual dimming of the sunshine as I rejoined the road near Southend was testament to the transit of the seasons. All around the countryside was silent, ripe and bountiful. The hedgerows offered up black sloes, damsons and blackberries, gnarled apple trees were dripping ripe fruit onto mushroom-carpetted lawns. Occasionally a game bird shrieked from the depths of the forest, and now and then a seasonally engorged but over-optimistic pigeon would launch itself from a bough, flailing through the branches as it tried to remember how to fly.

After a few more miles the gathering gloom persuaded me to pack away the camera. Under the cloak of darkness, I slipped undetected across the border into Oxfordshire and rejoined civilisation.

Click here for map > StonorMap

Stonor House > http://www.touruk.co.uk/houses/houseoxf_stonor.htm

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-- RodBird - 07 Oct 2005