Buckinghamshire: Wendover Woods to Tring (N Chilterns Escarpment)

21 June 2011          OS Explorer 181 Chiltern Hills North

Length: All day

This walk centres on the Chilterns escarpment and orchids.  Wendover Woods is run by the Forestry Commission and offers various facilities such as a café and trails for a range of users.  (For more information and to download a map go to www.forestry.gov.uk/wendoverwoods.)

          We parked at the car-park near Hengrove Wood off the Aston Clinton to Cholesbury road, opposite Chivery Hall Farm SP899083.  We took the footpath north from the car park (near which is a conspicuous yellow patch of the garden escape, whorled loosestrife Lysimachia verticillaris), and crossed a drive, eventually reaching a horse/cycle trail. 

Whorled loosestrife

There is a choice of turning right and continuing to the central car park, the shorter route, or, if given more time, of going left and exploring the southern end of Wendover Woods first.

Wendover Woods

The woods are mostly a mixture of beech Fagus sylvatica and pine.   At this time the foxgloves Digitalis purpurea were particularly prominent.  Along the initial footpath we noticed slender and hairy St. John’s-worts Hypericum pulchrum & H. hirsutum; yellow pimpernel Lysimachia nemorum; wood, remote and oval sedges Carex sylvatica, C. remota & C.ovalis; wood sorrel Oxalis acetosella; guelder rose Viburnum opulus; wood barley Hordelymus europaeus; wood millet Milium effusum; and bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta (now well over).

          We took the second of the options above (although this later put us under some time pressure).  Speckled wood butterflies were frequent.  Close to the southern edge of the wood the track had chalk banks with pale toadflax Linaria repens, wild mignonette Reseda lutea, bladder and white campions Silene vulgaris & S. latifolia, wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, musk thistle Carduus nutans, wood spurge Euphorbia amygdaloides, woodruff Galium odoratum, nettle-leaved bellflower Campanula trachelium (in bud) and large plants of wild candytuft Iberis amara, a rare plant of the Chilterns on disturbed or bare ground.  

Wild candytuft

When we came to a junction of tracks at the bottom of a slope we found a footpath to the right and took this, passing a good plant of deadly nightshade Atropa belladonna, typical of this area but very sparsely distributed. 

Deadly nightshade

This path came to a junction where we turned right but this proved to be up a very steep slope where, further up, trees had been felled to try to prevent access.  This eventually led back to the horse/cycle trail near where we had first joined it.  To avoid the difficulty of the steep obstructed path, one should turn left at the previous junction and turn right along the horse/cycle trail, here combined with the ‘Firecrest Trail’, which provides opportunities of seeing the rare firecrests that nest here in the pines.  After a second right turn that way reaches the central car park.

The trail we were on also joined the Firecrest Trail later, and although we saw none of these birds, we saw and heard plenty of blackcaps.  We also passed a few white helleborines Cephalanthera damasonium that had finished flowering.  This is the trail that would be followed if the shorter route from the start had been taken.  At a bend a footpath crossed the trail and led on the right to the central car-park via the “Go Ape!” huts for “Forest Adventure” activities.  We crossed the car-park and continued along the paved road north, inadvertently disturbing a great spotted woodpecker from a dead tree stump.  Alongside this road are several shrubs of the alien red-berried elder Sambucus racemosa, already with sprays of small orange-red berries and leaves reminiscent of a pale rowan but with red mid-veins.  A path to the right passes between another car-park and the edge of the wood and eventually passes fenced properties (and the usual associated large patch of escaped garden yellow archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon ssp argentatum with its silver-marked leaves) before leaving the trees and crossing open land to the Aston Clinton-Cholesbury road again opposite the Aston Hill Car-park (for mountain bikers only) and distant views of the Aylesbury Plain below. 

A track goes beside the right-hand side of the car-park to reach the woodland track behind it, where we turned left and descended the Chiltern escarpment by a fairly gentle diagonal gradient, although the trail is crossed by innumerable tree roots, over which it is a considerable challenge to avoid stumbling at some time!  The trees here are mostly pine although relics of the original ground flora include wood meadow-grass Poa nemoralis.  Emerging from the trees we passed the club-house of a golf-course, through which the footpath continues.  A less-mown bank descending on the right of the path had good specimens of pyramidal orchid Anacamptis pyramidalis and dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule.  Just before another small building with conveniences we could easily get through the wood-edge on the left to enter Aston Clinton Ragpits, a Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) reserve, sheltered within the site of a former chalk-rock (“rag”) quarry.  A path descends parallel to the road through dark pines and yews Taxus baccata to the entrance-gate from the road.  On our way we saw a small specimen of mezereon Daphne mezereum, but with no berries.  Turning right past the sheepfold, we entered the main chalk grassland part of the reserve.

Aston Clinton Ragpits

Here we were greeted with one of the greatest orchid sights(sites) in Britain more or less at its peak, with hundreds of fragrant orchids Gymnadenia conopsea and common spotted orchids Dactylorhiza fuchsii, twayblades Neottia ovata, greater butterfly orchids Platanthera chlorantha and pyramidal orchids, bee orchids Ophrys apifera, and broad-leaved helleborine  Epipactis helleborine (in bud).  

Fragrant & pyramidal orchids

Common spotted orchids

Fragrant orchids

Great butterfly orchid

There were also musk thistle, squinancywort Asperula cynanchica, common rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium, the common eyebright Euphrasia nemorosa and the large-flowered chalk eyebright E. pseudokerneri, fairy flax Linum catharticum, wild and large thyme Thymus polytrichus & pulegioides , carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria, horseshoe vetch Hippocrepis comosa, small scabious Scabiosa columbaria, yellow rattle Rhinanthus minor, lady’s bedstraw Galium verum, salad burnet Sanguisorba minor, common valerian Valeriana officinalis, columbine Aquilegia vulgaris, crested hair-grass Koeleria macrantha and the dry stalks of gone-over cowslips Primula veris.  

Squinancywort

Large thyme

Chalk eyebright

Over these fluttered marbled white butterflies, ringlets, common blues, bees and narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths.  A caterpillar of the latter was also seen on birdsfoot-trefoil Lotus corniculatus.  

Narrow-bordered Five-spot burnet

Burnet caterpillar

Cuckoo-bee Bombus (Psithyrus) sylvestris on musk thistle

The whole scene in its profusion of flowers was reminiscent of certain unspoiled spots in the Mediterranean, an impression reinforced by the sight of huge Roman snails wandering around after the previous night’s rain. 

Roman snail

A slow-worm was also found coiled among the grass and herbs, and we saw two grass-snakes, one adult and a small jet-black juvenile with a bright yellow-white collar. 

Slow-worm

We were of course too early for the gentians, including Chiltern gentian Gentianella germanica, that grow here, and we did not see any frog orchid Dactylorhiza viridis (perhaps not yet flowering) or adderstongue Ophioglossum vulgatum reportedly here.  Chalk milkwort Polygala calcarea is said to occur but we only saw small patches of common milkwort P. vulgaris.  The chalk species starts flowering earlier than the common one and may have been over.  A flatter field beyond the spoil-hillocks of the quarry has fewer species and is more dominated by dogwood Cornus sanguinea, but it does have two prominent clumps of mezereon, and these carried large numbers of red berries, although their leaves were rather etiolated, possibly because of too much light compared to the plant in the wood.

Mezereon

We reluctantly left the reserve by the main entrance and walked down the road, across the A4011 straight into a footpath descending through a narrow dark wood of yews to the Grand Union Canal (Wendover Arm).  This is the wood (Cobblers Pits) we passed on the 22 March walk (see post).  

Yews, Cobblers Pits

There is little ground flora in the dense shade, except for wood melick Melica uniflora, but there are alien shrubs and trees like Oregon grape Mahonia aquifolium, box Buxus sempervirens and evergreen oak Quercus ilex.  At the canal we turned right and followed the route of 22 March all the way to Drayton Beauchamp.  Now, however, yellow water-lilies Nuphar lutea were flowering, there were white clusters of privet Ligustrum vulgare flowers on the far bank, and the vegetation was now much more rampant with large water docks Rumex hydrolapathum, yellow iris Iris pseudacorus and reed sweet-grass Glyceria maxima.  At Buckland Wharf where we had seen the mass of flower on the cherry-plum Prunus cerasifera hedge there were now green fruit in plenty. 

Towards Drayton Beauchamp we passed buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica in fruit (with the small soldier beetle Cantharis pallida). 

Buckthorn and soldier beetle

Just before the new bridge for the Aston Clinton by-pass, appeared a clump of wild clary Salvia verbenaca with very blue flowers smaller than the rarer and larger meadow clary S. pratensis, and distinguished by white hairs on the calyx and no glandular hairs on the flowers.  

Wild clary

This plant seems to be decreasing – we rarely see it these days.  Past the bridge the chalk bank had abundant kidney vetch, although few other chalk plants.  We imagined that they had probably seeded the bare banks after construction work, so it remains to be seen how many of these flowers survive. 

Kidney vetch

At the churchyard there was not a sign of the masses of few-flowered garlic Allium paradoxum witnessed earlier: as a spring bulb plant it had entirely withered away.  Inside the churchyard the whole area covered by this and winter aconite Eranthis hyemalis had been cleared, leaving just bare soil and creeping stems of ground ivy Glechoma hederacea.  At least some of the clumps of stinking iris (gladdon) Iris foetidissima were in flower, although these always seem somewhat faded and shabby, even at their best, not as striking as their later orange berries.

Gladdon

We now continued along the canal past the churchyard a few yards to the next road bridge, where we turned right down the road about 200 metres to a footpath off on the left.  This is paved past houses and as far as what was Broadview Farm, now rebuilt as modern barns.  Slightly to the left the path continues up the side of a meadow, left along the hedgerow at the top and then through the hedge, across more horse pasture past Beeches Farm and through a small copse to the B488 road.  We could not see the path continuing opposite, which would have taken us straight to the edge of Tring, and had to go a little right before crossing to another path which stayed outside the town, by a wheat field with a little common poppy, until we reached the B4635 or Akeman Street.  Here we crossed and followed the road into Tring.  Where two roads joined from the right at Norfolk House we took the second continuing east and uphill, Park Road.  Here the brick walls had ivy-leaved toadflax Cymbalaria muralis, maidenhair spleenwort Asplenium trichomanes and yellow corydalis Pseudofumaria lutea.  Through cross-roads we continued straight on along King Street to the Kings Arms, a prominent red-painted building which faced us.  This was our destination for a lunch-break, with a range of real ales and home-cooked food (thankfully serving until 2.15pm).  This year 2011 is the 30^th anniversary of the current, obviously successful, management.

Kings Arms

After a break we continued eastwards beside the pub to the end of the street, turned right up Castle Street to the end, and then left to reach the Museum.  We passed beside it, still going east, to the path which goes south to Tring Park, a former Rothschild estate and now run by the Woodland Trust.  This path is fenced both sides, but on the right overlooks the museum’s “wildlife meadow”, accessible from near the museum.  This meadow has an old remnant of a pollarded sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus, now clearly on its last legs unfortunately, that would have been part of the grazed parkland at one time. 

Pollard sycamore

The path crosses the A41 trunk road by means of a spiral bridge, giving us close-up views of the canopy of neighbouring trees, mostly common lime Tilia x europaea. 

Lime flowers

The path now crosses grassland with scattered trees, heading for the Chiltern escarpment, which is mostly wooded. 

Tring Park, Chilterns escarpment

The grass has lady’s bedstraw, salad burnet, hoary plantain Plantago media, cowslip, and common spotted orchid.  At the bottom of the escarpment are a few old beech-trees. 

Old beech in Tring Park

As we climbed the escarpment we kept right along the more open slope grazed by cattle, to examine the grassland vegetation on the more open calcareous ground.  This was similar to that below, with the addition of fairy flax, common valerian, an abundance of common rock-rose, and wild thyme colonising ant-hills. 

Rock-rose

The cow-trails along here eventually reach a path going up to the top of the slope into the trees, past twayblades.  Some old beech here had obviously been planted in the days of grazed parkland, as they still had iron railings surrounding them to protect from cattle.  These railings were in part running through the tree itself, where it had grown too large and subsumed the cage.  

Caged beech-tree

This path ends at the wide Ridgeway Trail along the Icknield Way, where we turned right, proceeding west through a line of beech and lime. 

Icknield Way

An old log provides a microhabitat for plants and mosses

A break in the trees briefly gives a good view north over the park and Tring House, the former mansion.

View of Tring Park & House

The path turns to the left eventually through Bishop’s Wood (bluebells, sanicle Sanicula europaea) and past a patch of small balsam Impatiens parviflora just before reaching Hastoe Lane and the end of Woodland Trust land.  We continued to follow the Ridgeway Trail up the road to Hastoe Cross and left again following the sign to Hastoe.  There is a large patch of least yellow sorrel Oxalis exilis on the right-hand verge along here.  Beyond Hastoe the road bends sharply due south and we followed the Trail straight on along a path into Pavis, and later Northill, Woods.  There are some old beeches and hornbeams Carpinus betulus on the banks either side of the ancient track here.  When we emerged on another lane we left the Trail and went down the road, down the escarpment once more, past lots of wood melick on the steep banks, and the blue, pink and white flash of a jay disturbed from the surrounding woods.

Descending the road

At a hairpin bend a footpath leaves the road north up a steep slope past a meadow into Bittam’s Wood, part of the BBOWT reserve of Dancers End, past bluebell, yellow pimpernel, dog’s mercury Mercurialis perennis and woodruff.  New rides through the wood have common spotted orchid and red bartsia Odontites vernus, and offer glimpses of muntjac.  We continued straight on north, however, until we arrived at the grassland area of the reserve at SP900095, although we sometimes got led astray by other minor paths.  The grassland area is fenced for sheep-grazing and has a wide ride along the southern side outside the fence.  At this time of the year there are no sheep and there is open access to the grassland.  Along the ride were abundant twayblades and some greater butterfly orchid – we looked for fly orchids Ophrys insectifera as well, but did not find any.  (Nor, in the wooded area, could we find any wood vetch Vicia sylvatica, which we have seen here in the past.)  Towards the north side of the grassland, where there is a great deal of yellow rattle, are a few clusters of meadow clary.  This plant once died out here and was re-introduced, but its population is dwindling once more.  Its exact requirements in this region are difficult to determine, making management a matter of trial and error.  Plants are long-lived, however, and this showy plant with its striking blue flowers should survive here for some time yet.  Later in the summer there will be large numbers of Chiltern gentians here.

Meadow clary

We left the grassland at the far eastern end where a public footpath took us along the edge of woodland and back to Bittam’s Wood along our original path.  In the centre of the wood another footpath is signed to the left and we took this to the edge of the wood, along the top of a field and then diagonally across another field to the lane near which we were parked half a kilometre further south.