The Fox and Hounds - Route 2

(S/E) Turn right out of the pub car park and walk along the road for about 130 metres. There is a beech hedge on the left in front of a row of houses; just after the end of the hedge there is a footpath on your left marked Oxfordshire Way.

(1) Take this path into the woods. Keep following the white arrows through the woodland of beech with some oak and cherry.

(2) At the next junction, opposite a house with a wooden double gate, go left. After about 20 metres you will reach a tarmac lane; turn right. This is Hollandridge Lane; follow this ancient lane (now an unpaved track) into Queen and College Woods for about 1 mile/1.6km, until you come out of the woods. Just before Hollandridge Farm the Oxfordshire Way/Chiltern Way footpath crosses your track.

(3) Turn left onto the Oxfordshire Way. In winter you can see a farm and a pond in the woods to your right. After about 110 metres the path bears left (indicated by a fingerpost) going downhill across a field, then more steeply downhill into a wooded valley.

(4) At the crossroads in the valley bottom turn left, again following the Oxfordshire Way. Follow this path through the woods along the valley bottom for almost a mile. At a clearing in the woods take the right fork of the path continuing along the bottom of the valley and following the white arrows.

(5) At a path junction, the route bears to the left, becoming a narrower path through the trees leading to Hollandridge Lane where you turn right. Take the next footpath on the right, which goes between post and rail wooden fences across a small field and then through a wood. The path starts to go downhill before reaching a metal kissing gate. Go through the gate and walk across a pasture. The path goes slightly uphill; when the ground levels out you will see the next metal gate ahead of you. Go through this gate and head towards the next metal kissing gate which will take you on to a road.

(6) Go straight over the road and follow the footpath alongside a metal fence bordering a wood. Bear left at the end of the metal fence, following a deer fence on your right. This leads in to a beech woodland. Continue walking through the wood following the white arrows. When you reach a junction with a path going to the right, keep going straight, past some steep hollows on your left.

(7) At the next junction bear left; the path goes through a raised bank and then into an area of more mixed woodland, excellent for bluebells in the late spring. Look out for fallow deer in these woods. The path winds through the wood and then reaches a junction at a track. Turn left, walking along the track and across the front of a house and then between hedges. When you reach a fence bordering the field ahead of you, turn right. This path then goes round to the left, taking you to the road. At the road take the second left (road sign to Nettlebed and Henley); the Fox and Hounds is a short way along on the right hand side.(S/E)

Oxfordshire Way – A 65 mile walk from Bourton on Water in the Cotswolds to Henley on Thames in the Chilterns.

Hollandridge Lane – Dating from Saxon times, this lane once formed part of a route going from near Little Haseley in the Oxfordshire plain to near Stonor in the Chilterns.

Chiltern hollows – There are many hollows or dells such as this on the top of the Chilterns, probably dug out to supply clay or flint for building.