Walking on English National Trails around The Chilterns.

Hiking guides for several National Trails such as The Ridgeway, The Icknield Way and The Oxfordshire Way plus walks along the Grand Union and Oxford Canals.

Below you will find descriptions for a variety of English walks (around 21 of them) which might be of interest if you are on holiday in England or visiting our local area - there are many photographs from around the Chilterns on our pages which might be of interest and wish to go sightseeing (even if you are not a walker).

These walks generally work out around 8 to 12 miles - although there are a couple of heavys described too - and are mostly circular and often incorporate hiking along parts of several National Trails. These include hiking on The Ridgeway, The Oxfordshire Way, The Icknield Way and The South Bucks Way as well as parts of the eternally wandering Grim's Ditch and of course the River Thames and it's 185 miles of Thames Path. There also walks a little further north from where we live - around Market Harborough and Welford which may be of interest too.

The walks visit amongst other places Blenheim Great Park, Woodstock, Thame, Goring, Henley, Islip and Rycote Chapel and some are on The Grand Union Canal and also several which use the The Oxford Canal. By definition of course these long National Trails go somewhere so walking their whole distance involves two sets of transport or alternatively walking circulars and accumulating parts of the routes over a period of time - unless you plan on camping along their routes. We have in fact organised our various walks so that you can cover quite reasonable parts of the various trails simply by following the circular walks descriptions.

Walking Gear. Everyone has their preference for what to have on their feet when out rambling but certainly some of these walks really do require walking boots or at least wellies rather than simply trainers. For instance the Oxfordshire Way Trail is quite often really wet in places - it just seems to have a remarkable ability in finding underground springs on it's route - so sometimes you can be walking through deep slippery mud patches. Also we usually take a walking pole with us particularly when we expect to be walking across fields where they may be cows and sometimes even bulls grazing. In England public footpaths are not meant to be blocked or obstructed or create any sort of hazard to walkers however young cattle have a habit of running towards you. This is just because they are inquisitive however 20 or 30 calves racing towards you is a bit of a hazard in that (we know) sometimes they barely stop in time - what they do respect and will pay attention too is a stick being waved at them.
It is also of note how quickly the weather can change especially in the winter - we have set out on The Ridgeway in reasonably warm conditions, then ended up being snowed on a few hours later so again taking a bit of appropriate gear is worth while - that ridge is quite isolated in places.
The instructions for the walks are for guidance although we believe them to be accurate however of course a good Ordnance Survey Explorer map should be carried/utilised as well. We have taken quite a few GPS readings on the way round some of these walks because it's great fun to load a map into the computer and plan a route, load it into the GPS, then when the walk is finished load the actual tracking back into the PC and see the results on the map.

Books about our English Canals:- Anatomy of Canals Nicholson Guide to the Waterways British Canals: The Standard History Books about wildlife and nature in England: Wild Flowers (Pocket Nature) RSPB Pocket Birds

Books about walking and hiking in England: The Thames Path (National Trail Guides) Circular Walks Chiltern Way Bucks+Oxfordshire The Ridgeway (National Trail Guides) Chilterns and Thames Valley: Walks

GPS is setup on British Grid and to OSGB rather than Latitude/Longitude since our U.K. maps are designed and most easily followed using this setting. Quite apart from the lovely countryside around the area when walking it is always worth slight diversions to look at the churches in the various villages, some of which are very old. In addition at the appropriate time of year we have the "pre-Spring warning" of snowdrop displays followed by the massive displays of bluebells doing their thing in the woods - for example up at Christmas Common; then there are the fantastic autumn leaf displays for which Wendover Woods is justifiably famous.
As far as wildlife is concerned our area is full of all sorts to enjoy - particularly we have a thriving population of Red Kites - for instance around Thame it is very unlikely that you will fail to see at least 5 or 6 and quite often many more of these wonderful birds flying around often at tree height. Other locations to spot these kites is around Christmas Common and up at Stokenchurch and if you are happy to go walking then another good place to spot Red Kites is around Stonor Deer Park where in addition you often see hawks and buzzards as well as owls, woodpeckers and many other bird species.

Incidentally two good resources to look at for holiday accommodation if you are thinking of coming on holiday to the area covered by most of our walks are the Let’s Stay Chilterns and Let’s Stay Cotswolds websites.

The Complete list of English Walks described on our Sites (each link below will open a new page containing the walk)

Go to the Top of this Page Site Resources Contact Us

Our Home Page has Travel and Holiday Guides, Walks and Photos for Cyprus and for The Algarve. Our Topics on England contain photo pages and topics concerning English Churches, English Wildflowers and Toadstools. Having recently walked the Oxford Canal we have at least one photo of every canal lock and canal bridge on this beautiful English Canal. We have also walked the length of the Grand Union Canal from Birmingham to London and there are photos of all this canal's locks and bridges. Various Canal Arms leave the Grand Union Canal and we have several topics on several of these including the excellent Wendover Arm and the equally nice Market Harborough Arm.

Our Far East website contains holiday guides about Hong Kong, Bali, Bintan, a Gili Isle and Singapore plus photos from Thailand. On our Islands site we have Holiday Guides for the Canary Islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and the Greek Islands of Lesbos, Symi, Skiathos, Lefkada, Thassos, Crete, Samos, Naxos, Skopelos, Alonissos, Andros, Patmos, Mykonos, Corfu, Sikinos, Kos, Lipsi, Rhodes, Santorini, Paros and Paxos. Please visit our New Zealand website for many topics and photos about holidays in that beautiful country, our India Holiday Guides concerning Goa and a little about Karnataka and finally take a look at our Egypt site for lots of photos from Luxor and it's ancient sites and also information about holidays in Sharm el Sheikh.

Good External "Walking Related"  Web Resources
www.chilternsaonb.org
Chiltern Experience Risborough Area Community Action (RACA) - Chiltern Experience website
Walking Routes 100's of links to UK web pages which detail 1000's of on-line walking routes, hiking trails, route directions, route maps etc
Southern Walks Many walks on this site covering the South of England including walks using the Test Way, New Forest, South Downs Way and so on.
Bestwalks - the most comprehensive resource on the web for books on walking the Chilterns and the whole of the UK
Goring Gap Health Walks Their goal is to provide useful information about their Health Walking group and the area in which they walk.
Abingdon Walks Walk and Historical Walk Ideas - Abingdon Town, River, Country and Boar's Hill Walks

www.foxysislandwalks.co.uk