Length: 15.4 km (9.6 miles) Options to extend at walk-end - by 3.5 miles to Marlow, or 4 miles to Maidenhead
Toughness: 2 out of 10 4 out of 10 if going long
Car drivers - sorry, this walk does not work for you.
For those of you comfortable using public transport in Covid times, your recommended train is:
London Marylebone: 10-13 hrs Chilterns service to Aylesbury
Arrive Gerrards Cross: 10-32 hrs
Return
Cookham to Paddington, changing at Maidenhead: 16-15, 17-32, 18-03, 18-38 and 19-08 hrs
Marlow to Paddington, changing at Bourne End and at Maidenhead: 17-18, 17-47, 18-24 and 18-54 hrs
Maidenhead to Paddington: direct trains at 17-05, 17-16, 17-24, 17-35, 17-46, 18-05, 18-18, 18-25, 18-35, 18-46 and 18-57 hrs
Rail ticket: as the rail termini serve different railway companies you will need separate single tickets today, making use of your travelcard where appropriate. This minor inconvenience is the trade-off for an outward journey of only 19 mins
See our Covid Rules
Today's walk after a very short outward train journey starts over Bulstrode Park, then past woods and lakes to the village of Hedgerley before you continue through Egypt Wood and Burnham Beeches. Onwards then to Littleworth Common, where you have a choice of two good pubs for your lunch stop, at either end of the Common - The Jolly Woodman - and the Blackwood Arms. Best you 'phone ahead with numbers to reserve a place.
After lunch you walk through more woods and along field edges then downhill through Woolman's Wood on the Beeches Way path as you finally pass through a residential development to come out beside the River Thames. It's a short walk then to cross the Cookham Town bridge to enter Cookham. On your left you will come to the Stanley Spencer Gallery - worth a brief visit if still open , then the two main pubs for a post-walk drink - The Bel and the Dragon, and The Kings Arms.
If the weather remains fine as you enter Cookham, and you still have energy to burn, you have a choice of two excellent and enjoyable walk extensions, in either direction from Cookham. The walk to Maidenhead is along a riverside path, initially with fine views on the others side of the river of Cliveden, a country house which will always be associated with the Profumo affair in 1963. The walk in the other direction over meadows and fields to Marlow is equally enjoyable.
T=1.40
Walk Directions are here: L=1.40
After lunch you walk through more woods and along field edges then downhill through Woolman's Wood on the Beeches Way path as you finally pass through a residential development to come out beside the River Thames. It's a short walk then to cross the Cookham Town bridge to enter Cookham. On your left you will come to the Stanley Spencer Gallery - worth a brief visit if still open , then the two main pubs for a post-walk drink - The Bel and the Dragon, and The Kings Arms.
If the weather remains fine as you enter Cookham, and you still have energy to burn, you have a choice of two excellent and enjoyable walk extensions, in either direction from Cookham. The walk to Maidenhead is along a riverside path, initially with fine views on the others side of the river of Cliveden, a country house which will always be associated with the Profumo affair in 1963. The walk in the other direction over meadows and fields to Marlow is equally enjoyable.
T=1.40
Walk Directions are here: L=1.40
1 comment:
N=8 turned up on a w=mostly-cloudy-occasionally-rainy day. An attempt to divide into 2 staggered groups of 4 was only partly successful. 6 shot off leaving just 2 behind. This later settled into 5, 2 and one slow one. 3 ate at the Woodman. Lots of conkers. Saw an old man collecting them –claimed they were for his daughter to ward off spiders. (What does she do? Throw them at them?) Not known if the faster ones stopped anywhere in Cookham. The slower 2 got the 4:15.
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