King William IV - Route 3

(S/E) Leave the pub car park and turn right downhill. Walk down the road for 200 metres and turn right on the Chiltern Way Extension. Continue straight ahead on a broad track past Poors Farm then on to a narrow path through the middle of a field. Enter the woods on a clearly defined path.

(1) Emerge from the woods at Woodhouse Farm and turn left on a tarmac road. When you reach a junction with some cottages on your left (known as Forest Row), turn right and following the Chiltern Way extension along the road.

(2) After 400 metres, turn right and follow the Ridgeway sign through a kissing gate. Walk along Grims Ditch with views of the Berkshire Downs to the right. Walk through the trees with a bank on the left which obscures the view on that side. As you walk uphill, you will become more aware of the ditch to your left. Cross a stile and continue to follow the path uphill. Pass through a kissing gate and the path follows the bottom of the ditch in a straight line for 200 metres. Next to a gate and drive leading to a house (called Woodlands Cottage) on the right, pass through a kissing gate and turn left, then turn right immediately on to the Ridgeway. Continue up this path which is now to the left of Grim’s Ditch. At one point, this section of path once again descends into the bottom of the ditch. When you reach a junction of paths turn left still following the Ridgeway signs. Follow the path to the right of a five-barred gate and past a large white house to the road.

(3) Turn right and, in a few metres, you will reach Holy Trinity Church, Nuffield. Leave the church gate and turn right on the road. At the junction turn right and walk on the pavement and then a grass verge. Opposite a left turn to English Farm, turn right on a footpath (yellow arrow) and walk straight ahead across a field.

(4) When you reach a cross-track turn left (yellow arrow) and follow a path which after winding around the boundaries of a large house turns sharply right. At the main gate, walk straight ahead across the drive and over the stile. Follow the path along the front of the house and turn left.

(5) At the road, walk straight ahead. At the kissing gate, go straight ahead and pass through another kissing gate and walk down the track to Homer Farm. Pass the farmhouse on your left and follow a footpath sign on a tree.

(6) At the broad, muddy tarmac road, turn right and walk along this road (almost no traffic), then stay with what has become an unmade road, ignoring the permissive path on the right, for nearly 3km until you arrive back at the King William.(S/E)

The Chiltern Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in southern England. The route is circular and runs through the Chiltern Hills region passing through parts of four counties.

The Ridgeway is an ancient trackway described as Britain’s oldest road. The route was adapted and extended as a National Trail, created in 1972. The Ridgeway National Trail follows the ancient Ridgeway from Overton Hill, near Avebury, to Streatley, then follows footpaths and parts of the ancient Icknield Way through the Chiltern Hills to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. It is 87 miles long.