West Wycombe & Hughenden

START & FINISH: (A) West Wycombe Garden Centre pay and display car park, Chorley Road, West Wycombe HP14 3AP. Grid ref: SU 826 947

(S/E) From the car park entrance, cross the road and turn right down the pavement to the main road. Turn left through the village and continue to the roundabout.

(1) Cross the road to the left of the petrol station into Cookshall Lane. Walk along the lane, go under the railway bridge and take the second path on the right just before the entrance to Cookshall Farm. Follow the path uphill for over 500m to a junction. Fork to the right next to the steps. Stay on this path as it climbs up through the wood, cross over the next path junction near the top and continue to a road at the edge of (B) Downley.

(2) Turn left past the school entrance, ignore the kissing gate to the left and take the wide path to the right of it. This path leads to a road junction with the High Street opposite. Turn left down Plomer Green Lane. Turn right into Moor Lane and continue down to the gravel section and path junction.

(3) Fork right along the bridleway and keep ahead past the NT sign for the Hughenden Estate, on the path waymarked as a bridleway, at the 5 way junction.

(4) Leave the woods and follow the hedgerow on the right for 450m to the end of the field. Stay on the same track up through the woods to the buildings at the top. Ahead are the toilets and tearooms of (C) Hughenden Manor.

(5) Turn left just before the buildings for 50m passing the Ice House and bear left steeply downhill to a wide track. Turn right and follow this track for over 500m to where the field on the left ends.

(6) Turn left downhill towards Downley and, on reaching the bottom, continue directly ahead to climb out of the valley. Cross a major ditch, stay in same direction for a further 100m and bear right uphill. At the time of writing the only waymark here is a faint arrow on a tree.

(7) At the next path junction, ignore the gate on the right, cross the small ditch and continue ahead to the edge of open ground, (D) Downley Common. Walk up the hill towards the left of the houses and fork left onto a path with no waymarking through a gap in the hedgerow up to a cricket pitch. Cross the cricket pitch to a lane and take the path to the right of Downley Sports Pavilion. After a few metres turn left through a gate into a field.

(8) Follow the hedgerow on the right through the next gate and continue along the edge of the field for 400m to enter a wood to the left of the electricity poles. The path descends to a wide grassy track.

(9) Turn left down to a lane and turn left along the lane.

(10) Just after the brow of the hill, bear right through a car park and ahead through a gap in the fence into a field. Head down the middle, through a gap and cross the track to a path directly opposite. Climb up to a field and bear right along its edge. Where the track bends to the right, continue ahead along the edge of the same field. Go through a gap in the hedgerow, drop down under the railway line and bear diagonally left across the field to a busy road.

(11) Cross the road and go through the gate opposite. Keep to the right-hand side of the field for 170m and go through a gate on the right. Turn immediately left uphill to a lane,

(12) Turn right along the lane for a few metres and take the path on the left up (E) West Wycombe Hill to the Dashwood Mausoleum, where you can admire the views and explore the buildings.

(13) Return to the front of the Mausoleum, drop down the slope towards High Wycombe and, after 50m, turn right onto a smaller path. Where the first set of steps ends, turn right down the remaining steps to a road and cross it to return to the car park.(S/E)

"We hope you have enjoyed your walk. Please remember to rate the walk and add comments. We are interested in how we could improve the instructions or the route and would like to hear about any issues with paths on the walk."

TERRAIN: A moderate to strenuous walk on good surfaces but can be muddy at times. Three significant climbs. There are a small number of gates, but the walk is stile-free
NAVIGATING: Please make sure you follow the instructions and check the map screen on your GPS. The correct path is not always the widest path at the junction or turning point
START & FINISH: West Wycombe Garden Centre pay and display car park, Chorley Road, West Wycombe HP14 3AP. Grid ref: SU 826 947
FOOD & DRINK: Café at the Start/Finish, pubs and cafés in West Wycombe, the Stableyard Café at Hughenden Manor, The Hellfire Café and the Le De Spencers Arms just off the route on Downley Common
PARKING: West Wycombe Garden Centre pay and display car park – see above. There is limited free parking by St Lawrence Church, reached by the single track road, Church Lane, leading off Chorley Road opposite the start point. If parking there follow the walk from Waypoint 29 to get to the Start.
LOCAL TRANSPORT: West Wycombe is served by many bus services from High Wycombe. The most frequent are service 40 to Thame, service 275 to Oxford and services 300/X30 and 321 to Aylesbury. Full details can be found on www.travelinesoutheast.org.uk
This walk was created for the book "More Great Walks in the Chilterns" available from the Chiltern Society, White Hill Centre, White Hill, Chesham, Bucks, HP5 1AG Tel. 01494 771250. Also available from Amazon: More Great Walks

(A) WEST WYCOMBE Archaeological remains suggest that there may have been human activity in the area during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The earliest known settlement was an Iron Age fort at the top of Church Lane. There’s also evidence of Roman activity. The Dashwood family acquired the manor of West Wycombe in 1698. The house and grounds underwent a complete transformation in the 18th century, carried out by Sir Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, and were passed to the NT in 1943. The entire village was sold by the Dashwood family to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (Royal Society of Arts) in 1929. They carried out extensive repairs before handing it over to the NT in 1934. There are many 16th and 18th century buildings to be seen when walking through the village.

(B) DOWNLEY’s name derives from the Old English word lea, meaning a clearing on the downs. It’s formed from three hamlets, Downley, Littleworth and Plummer’s Green. It has a long history of farming, as well as brick and furniture making.

(C) HUGHENDEN MANOR was first recorded in 1086 when it was held by William, son of the Bishop of Bayeux. Its value was assessed at 10 hides. There have been various owners over the centuries, but in 1848 it was bought by Benjamin Disraeli, a future British Prime Minister, who felt that a country seat would help secure his political ambitions. He and his wife then started the task of remodelling the house and grounds. He died in 1881, leaving the estate to his nephew Coningsby Disraeli, who added the west wing in 1910. During WWII the house was used as a secret base for the production of target maps for bomber crews. The maps were developed from aerial photographs analysed at Danesfield House near Marlow. In 1947 the estate was passed to the NT, and in 1955 the house was designated a Grade I listed building.

(D) DOWNLEY COMMON: One of the highlights of the walk is passing through sections of DOWNLEY COMMON, which can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times. Its more recent history can be seen in the number of banks or ditches used to mark boundaries, and the pits dug for clay, chalk or wood cutting. During WWII the Common was used to test Churchill tanks that were manufactured at the nearby Broome and Wade factory.

(E) WEST WYCOMBE HILL is famous for several features: the Dashwood Mausoleum, St Lawrence Church and the Hellfire Caves. The Caves were excavated to provide both chalk for the new turnpike and work for the local population. They were later used by the notorious Hellfire Club. The Grade I listed St Lawrence Church stands on the site of an Iron Age fort. It was originally built to serve the lost village of Haveringdon, and was remodelled in its current form by Sir Francis Dashwood. Its crowning glory is the Golden Ball, which is large enough to hold six people and is reputed to have been a meeting place for the Hellfire Club. The design of the Mausoleum is based on the Constantine Arch in Rome. It was built to house the urns containing the ashes of the Dashwood family.