Buckinghamshire: Radnage to West Wycombe: Chiltern Gentians

22 August 2011   OS Explorer 171 & 172 Chiltern Hills West & East

Length: All day

This walk is constructed around three classic Chiltern gentian Gentianella germanica sites.  It is also a pleasant and scenic walk for its own sake.

          We parked by Radnage church SU786979.  The name of this tiny village derives from the Anglo-Saxon rēad āc “red oak-tree”.  It seems unlikely this would refer at such an early date to the alien species “red oak”, more likely a distinctive native oak-tree with reddish bark or leaves, or one marked with a red design.  Such a tree, however, would presumably have been lost long ago, although pedunculate oaks Quercus robur are of course still frequent in the vicinity.  The Church of St Mary seems to date back at least to the 13^th century and contains some 16^th century wall paintings.  It has a low square central tower and featured in the film “Month in the Country”.  The man who is said to have killed the last wild bear in England is buried to the left of the church door, the gravestone showing a man hunting bear with bow and arrow.

Radnage Church

A footpath (Chiltern Way) leads through the churchyard itself, which is creditably managed leaving plenty of longer grass.  To the accompaniment of red kites mewing loudly (we had good views of them most of the day), we noticed that lily-of-the-valley Convallaria majalis had spread across two graves and was well-established; other plants we saw included harebell Campanula rotundifolia, dark mullein Verbascum nigrum, burnet saxifrage Pimpinella saxifraga, salad burnet Sanguisorba minor, marjoram Origanum vulgare, common (mostly) and chalk knapweeds Centaurea nigra & debauxii, green alkanet Pentaglottis sempervirens, wild basil Clinopodium vulgare, and nettle-leaved bellflower Campanula trachelium showing that the soil here is chalky, and these were all plants we would see regularly the rest of the day. 

Harebell

The church walls were kept well cleaned of plants, but a little hartstongue fern Phyllitis scolopendrium survived at the base of one wall with pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica and wall lettuce Mycelis muralis.  Hedge browns were already flying at 9.30am.

          After leaving the churchyard by a stone stile the path crosses two pastures to a stile where two paths diverged.  We took the left-hand one up to the gate giving access to Yoesden Bank on the left. 

Yoesden Bank

This is a botanically-rich chalk slope managed by Bucks County Council.  Apart from the common chalk flowers above, there was an abundance of rest-harrow Ononis repens, plus eyebright Euphrasia nemorosa, wild thyme Thymus polytrichus, small scabious Scabiosa columbaria, quaking-grass Briza media, dwarf thistle Cirsium acaule, yellowwort Blackstonia perfoliata, common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii and white helleborine Cephalanthera damasonium and several other orchids in fruit, and kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria. 

Rest-harrow

Dwarf thistle

Chiltern gentians were abundant but more scattered along this long hillside than at many sites, along with smaller hybrid gentians Gentianella x pamplinii, although no true autumn gentians G. amarella. 

Chiltern gentian

Active here were Roesel’s bush-cricket, sloe bugs Dolycoris baccarum, many butterflies – meadow and hedge browns, common and chalkhill blues, and small heath, and heath snails Helicella itala typical of this habitat (despite the English name) and distinctive with their wide umbilicus.

Sloe bug

Chalkhill blue

Small heath

10 Heath snail (upper side)

Heath snail (lower side)

Having explored here a while we returned to the path, which continued up the slope into an area of scrub with devilsbit scabious Succisa pratensis, nettle-leaved bellflower, dewberry Rubus caesius, rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium and more Chiltern gentians.  

Devilsbit scabious

Rock-rose & marjoram

By the path the woolly galls that commonly infest marjoram were obvious, caused by the mite Aceria origani.  We continued to follow the Chiltern Way through some trees and along a double hedgerow separating agricultural fields.  This soon led to the main road through Bledlow Ridge, where we left the Chiltern Way and turned right along the road a little way until another footpath departed on the right, past houses and gardens and then diagonally across a field. 

View from below Bledlow Ridge to Saunderton Lee & Bradenham Woods

Where it meets a hedge we kept to the west side (the path was not all that clear here), and continued downhill through pasture with few flowers but some dwarf thistles, followed by a former field of oil-seed-rape marked by a forest of dry stalks under which there was a carpet of new rape growth giving off an unpleasant cabbage smell as we walked across.  Passing under a line of pylons we reached an isolated pair of houses with a surfaced track which we took to the right leading to Haw Lane.  Here we turned left and walked up a slight slope, with dark mullein on the verge, until a footpath came off on the right going up Slough Hill.  We passed a pretty shrub of guelder rose Viburnum opulus with its bright red berries and then typical chalk plants of long grass all the way to the top of the hill – pleasant and full of butterflies, even if nothing specially notable.  At the top of the hill, just past a hedge, a footpath goes diagonally across a field to a small road.  The field had just been ploughed, however, and the path unmarked.  We fortunately estimated the direction near enough, aiming for a large gap in the hedge at the bottom, near which we found the exit to a bend in the lane where we continued left along the lane.  The lane leads under a railway bridge and into Saunderton.

          Here we directly crossed the busy A4010 (Bradenham Road) and went straight up Smalldean Lane to the eponymous farm, where a footpath to the right goes through the farmyard and left up the hill to the edge of Park Wood above. 

Small Dean Farm

The path then follows the wood-edge along a wide strip of rough grassland between the wood and ploughed fields for about a kilometre. 

Edge of Park Wood

Again there was a common chalk flora, plus yellowwort, common spotted orchid, common centaury and brown spikes of old clover broomrapes Orobanche minor in one large patch. The field edge had few arable annuals except lots of dwarf spurge Euphorbia exigua.  Having turned a corner of the wood we passed a little rock-rose and entered a small chalk bank with a few dozen Chiltern gentians.  After more wood-edge with brimstone butterflies the path gently descended through arable fields along a comfortable wide grassy verge.  While not botanically rich this is a very pleasant walk with wide views and Bradenham Manor among the trees ahead.  The cultivated land had a few more plants, including small toadflax Chaenorhinum minus, field pansy Viola arvensis, field madder Sherardia arvensis, and scarlet pimpernel Anagallis arvensis.

          At Bradenham we crossed the road and walked along the edge of the mown grass in front of the churchyard (and the flowering crab-tree festooned with mistletoe Viscum album featured in our Post for 19 April 2011), and round two sides of the Manor.  Here we reached the woods and took the right-hand footpath into Pimlocks Wood and then a long walk through Kit’s Wood, with some sizable beech Fagus sylvatica and oak trees, wild cherry Prunus avium and holly Ilex aquifolium, and spikes of wood-barley Hordelymus europaeus.  

Kit’s Wood

A roe deer passed quickly ahead of us and out of view, and speckled woods passed by frequently.  Having reached the east edge of Kit’s Wood at its lowest end, before a fence starts on the right of the path, it is possible to walk through the trees on that side towards grassy glades visible beyond them.  These glades have a chalk grassland flora and wind between clumps of scrub until one finds one’s way, somewhat by trial and error, to a wider chalk slope which has hundreds of clustered bellflower Campanula glomerata on the lower slope and a good number of Chiltern gentians on the upper part among a lot of dwarf thistle.  

Clustered bellflower

Chiltern gentian

There was also yellowwort, ploughman’s spikenard Inula conyza, chalk knapweed and large thyme Thymus pulegioides.

Chalk knapweed

Returning to the path we left Kit’s Wood and came to the railway line where there is normally a crossing, the path continuing on the other side directly to West Wycombe.  This was fenced off, however, and an easy but dull stone track has been laid along the east side of the line 500 metres south to another path which crosses underneath a bridge and then crosses a cornfield to the A4010 road.  In this field we passed a few clumps of the coarse alien grass cockspur Echinocloa crus-galli.  This is occasionally seen on waste-dumps from discarded bird-seed.  Here it probably derives from a seed-mixture used for feeding game-birds nearby, spread by birds or muddy boots. 

Cockspur grass

Crossing the road the path goes along a hedgerow under a grand row of fruiting hornbeam Carpinus betulus boughs. 

Row of hornbeams

This path emerges into Church Lane, West Wycombe, and we turned left to follow it down to the main road (A40) in the centre of the village.  Opposite is the George and Dragon and a welcome chance of rest and refreshment.

          Leaving the pub along the road to the west to the end of the village, we had a choice of a path up past the Mausoleum on top of West Wycombe Hill and along the ridge, or walking beside the road off to the right past the garden centre.  With a stomach full of sausages and mash we opted for the easier road option, which proved fortuitous.  (The route along the ridge is covered by our Post for 19 April 2011.)  Just before we reached a row of houses on the right there was scrub with lots of traveller’s joy Clematis vitalba just at its flowering peak (aptly named for walkers), but also a wide patch of tall mint Mentha x smithiana, a garden escape but well-established here. 

29red Traveller’s joy

Tall mint

We also came across a low plant of vervain Verbena officinalis that had just survived road-verge cutting, and hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum.  Passing the houses we also saw several spikes of hollyhock Alcea rosea, more garden escapes, on the left-hand side of the road.  But it was just at the end of the houses that we noticed a plant of horse-radish Armoracia rusticana conspicuous for the number of snails on its leaves.  We were surprised to find that among the snails were many pointed (or sandhill) snails Cochlicella acuta normally only found on the coast, where they are common. 

V5 Pointed snails

Michael Kerney’s “Atlas of the Land and Freshwater Molluscs of Britain and Ireland” says that these snails are rarely introduced further inland and then they do not last long.  He does however include a 1988 record for West Wycombe!  Obviously this is an exceptionally long-lasting inland colony.  We found the living snails and plenty of old shells for some way along the road after this spot, on all sorts of vegetation.  Also on the horse-radish were the small dark blue leaf-beetles Psylliodes napi which are common on a wide range of plants in the cabbage or crucifer family.

          At the crossroads we took the right-hand road, Slough Lane, a narrow but very quiet lane with little traffic. 

Path to Buttler’s Hangings

We ascended the footpath on the right between double hedges and entered another chalk bank, which was until recently the Buttler’s Hangings Nature Reserve of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust until there were difficulties over continuing the lease.  The reserve is now becoming scrubbier, but it still contains important flora and fauna.  Chiltern gentians occur densely here in their thousands, even growing in the steps of the path as it goes up the south end of the bank. 

Dense Chiltern gentians

As well as chalk flowers already found frequently, there were carline thistle Carlina vulgaris, small scabious, rest-harrow, blue fleabane Erigeron acer, wild thyme, rock-rose, devilsbit scabious, sweetbriar Rosa rubiginosa with erect sepals on the hips, chalk knapweed, common centaury, glaucous sedge Carex flacca, and squinancywort Asperula cynanchina on ant-hills becoming swamped by more vigorous vegetation.

Carline thistle

Blue fleabane

Chalk knapweed

Common centaury

Among the butterflies were brown argus and large skipper.  A fungus growing not too far from the wood-edge (and probably associated with beech-tree roots) was Boletus fechtneri, one of those with bulky stems, bright yellow at the top, and a light grey-brown cap sticky after the rain, the pale flesh turning slightly blue in part of the upper stem on cutting.  There are few records of this fungus but it is thought to be under-recorded (possibly because it is not illustrated in any of the usual field-guides). 

Boletus fechtneri

Bedeguar galls (robin’s pincushions) are familiar on rose bushes, usually on the stems: here we found them also on the sepals of hips.  Rose sawfly caterpillars ate statuesquely on the leaves.

Bedeguar gall on hip

Rose sawfly larvae

A wooden seat celebrates the haiku writer Norman Barraclough:

“Sawn down hawthorn

orchids flowering through its shadow”.

Barraclough seat

One could spend much more time exploring here, as this is another large site, but we had to return to the footpath and go back downhill to the road. 

Leaving Buttler’s Hangings

This time we chose to walk beside the cultivated field rather than between the hedgerows and came across musk mallow Malva moschata, an apparently misplaced Chiltern gentian, wild mignonette Reseda lutea, hop trefoil Trifolium campestre and some yellow chamomile Anthemis tinctoria, like a small corn marigold but with pinnate leaves. 

Yellow chamomile

We continued up the lane to Slough Bottom Farm, opposite which is a footpath on the left going straight uphill to Bledlow Ridge.  There was little to retain our interest here except a lone specimen of the yellow-stainer mushroom Agaricus xanthodermus. 

Yellow stainer

The path becomes a surfaced lane and then leads into Chinnor Road along the top of the ridge.  Here we turned right into the village of Bledlow Ridge.  We passed the first footpath at the edge of an elaborate children’s playground and took the next one, a bridleway, just before a road junction.  Where the track leaves the housing we took the right turn off the bridleway along a footpath that descends and then cuts around the rolling hills below Bledlow Ridge.  There was common cornsalad Valerianella locusta at the edge of one of the arable fields here.  The path then skirts Yoesden Wood where there is rock-rose and wood barley on the bank. A comma butterfly flew over the flowers of rest-harrow and devilsbit scabious along the path, which soon leads to the gate below Yoesden Bank where we had arrived from Radnage Church at the beginning of the walk, so it was only a short way back to the car.  Looking back up at Yoesden Bank it seemed remarkably dull – pale browns and greens interrupted by small dark bushes – giving no hint of the colour and variety to be seen at close quarters.