Length: Circular Walk - 18.2 km (11.3 miles) Walk to Henley via High Wood - 14.7 km (9.1 miles); Direct route back to Henley cuts out another 4km.
Toughness: 4 out of 10 No steep hills today
Either
London Paddington: 10-27 hrs Great Western service to Didcot Parkway Ealing B'way 10-35 hrs
Arrive Twyford: 11-07 hrs change trains
Leave Twyford: 11-12 hrs Great Western service to Henley
Arrive Shiplake: 11-19 hrs
or - for holders of London Councils Freedom Passes
London Paddington: 10-13 hrs TfL Rail service to Reading Ealing B'way 10-22 hrs
Arrive Twyford: 11-01 hrs change trains
Leave Twyford: 11-12 hrs Great Western service to Henley
Arrive Shiplake: 11-19 hrs
Return
Henley to Paddington via Twyford: 15-57, 16-27, 16-59, 17-35, 18-07 and so on
Shiplake to Paddington via Twyford: 4 mins after Henley departures
Rail ticket: Holders of Freedom Passes travelling on the TfL Rail train have free travel as far as Twyford, leaving them to buy day returns from Twyford to Henley-on-Thames. Everyone else - buy a day return to Henley-on-Thames
This is my favourite bluebell walk and I post it at this time of year, every year. If that is boring - tough !
The Maltsters Arms pub in Rotherfield Greys is not answering the 'phone so I presume it remains temporarily CLOSED (as noted on its web page ) until the brewery finds a new tenant to take on this lovely pub. So lunch options today are either an early pub lunch at the Bottle & Glass Inn - see below - or a picnic en route. The best spot for this is in the beautiful bluebell paddock just before you start your approach to Rotherfield Greys.
As for today's walk, I suggest we do the High Wood option at the start, for its bluebells, instead of the main riverside route. But as this will mean your missing out on the water feature for the day (the River Thames), you can make up for this by continuing the walk from Henley back to Shiplake, mostly beside the Thames. But before this: shortly after exiting High Wood you arrive in the village of Binfield Heath, where you have today's pub lunch option at the popular Bottle & Glass Inn. If not stopping here you continue on through fields and over farmland to the picnic spot mentioned above or into the village of Rotherfield Greys, where you can picnic near the church.
Leaving the village it's decision time: you can take the direct, valley route to Henley, or - and recommended today - you continue on the main walk to Greys Court, where its impressive bluebell paddock should be in full flower. On then to Lambridge Wood, for more bluebells, where many a SWC walker has got lost, including me. Even though I wrote up the recent directions I have wandered off piste more than once and become hopelessly lost in these woods. So do please take care when following the directions - or the line on your hand-held gizmo. Having made it through these woods you come out onto a golf course, which you traverse before heading past the late Mr George Harrison's estate and on into the centre of Henley. Here, as mentioned earlier, you can conclude your walk, or continue on alongside the River Thames back to Shiplake. Tea options are plentiful in Henley - with the Chocolate Cafe being a favourite with SWC walkers. The only refreshment stop in Shiplake happens to be a good one - the Baskerville pub, next door to the railway station.
Enjoy !
T=1.9
Walk Directions are here: L=1.9
1 comment:
N=7 on this walk. There was an eighth but she disappeared at Twyford, apparently: last seen walking in the direction of the ticket office and then lost to history.
The weather was w=grey-and-cold. What happened to spring? But it was evident all around us. As has become the theme this year, the bluebells were excellent, absolutely at best. Not just in the big wood in the morning but at all sorts of places en route, some of which I don’t remember having bluebells before. Other nice flowers too for the cognoscenti (ie me…): goldilocks buttercups, wood speedwell, (yadda yadda…)
I was greeted at the start of the walk by the alarming news that no one else intended to have a pub lunch. Cue hurried purchase of cold pastie from the village shop (thanks to the group for waiting while I did this). One of our group then did stop in the Bottle & Glass. We assumed this was to eat, but it turned out later he just fancied a glass (or a bottle).
Our lunch stop was interesting. We hopped a locked gate, crossed a field and entered a stunning bluebell wood which seemed to be part of someone’s private estate, as evidenced by a children’s playground and a picnic table. I was assured this was all legal and above board. After lunch we crossed another field and waded through brambles to circumvent a barbed wire fence and a locked gate. We were then back on an actual right of way. Amazingly we ran into the Bottle & Glass guy here, but he only walked with us for a bit before going off to another pub to retrieve a hat (don’t ask: I certainly didn’t.)
At Rotherfield Greys one person took the short cut back to Henley. The Maltsters is still closed for refurbishment but looks close to reopening. At Greys Court there were lambs so newly emerged that they still trailed their umbilical chords. I inveigled the walk poster into diverting here into the grounds of the (NT-owned) property to see the bluebell wood close-up. Reader, it was worth the diversion. It is a bit “managed”, but has the most stunning, thick, intense and extensive area of the purple-blue wonders that you ever saw. After this I nagged my companion into having tea at the cafe (I know he held a torch for the Chocolate Cafe in Henley, but I was gasping for a cuppa).
Through more bluebells in Lambridge Woods - plus bright green new beech foliage that would have been a treat in sunshine but still looked grand without it - and on to Henley where the choice was rush for a train or go to the airport terminal-sized Spoons for a pint. The Spoons won. Then home.
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