23rd May 2012 OS Explorer 171 Chiltern Hills West
Length: All day.
We parked at Ipsden Heath by Southdown Road at SU667857, and walked south down the road through a wood owned by the Woodland Trust and notable for its bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta, yellow archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon montanum and woodruff Galium odorata.
Ipsden Heath
Bluebells, Ipsden Heath
Yellow archangel
There was also sanicle Sanicula europaea, enchanter’s nightshade Circaea lutetiana, wood melick Melica uniflora, wood sedge Carex sylvatica and the leaves of wood anemone Anemone nemorosa, which we were to see regularly through the woods today, although they have become rare in some other parts of the Chilterns. Very few were in flower at this date, but some had seed-heads, although they do seem to flower sparingly in this area, perhaps the reason why they are becoming less common. On a sunny day, unusually warm for May, speckled wood butterflies were active, well matched to the dappled shade of the beeches Fagus sylvatica.
Speckled wood on greater stitchwort
We kept straight on at the junction with Kit Lane just south of Ipsden Heath Farm, on the left hand side of the road a few old stems of Brussel sprouts Brassica oleracea var gemmifera had been dumped in the edge of the wood last year and one of these had managed to root and had grown a magnificent flowering stem!
Brussel sprout flowering
Brussel sprout flower
On the other side of the road someone had also dumped at some time garden yellow archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon argentatum, for there was a large patch established here. We hope it does not oust the native species.
[A better alternative at the junction with Kit Lane is to take the path that starts opposite this road and leads to an exit on the south edge of the Woodland Trust area on the Quiet Lane below. This passes a number of notable and veteran trees.]
At a crossroads we turned right down what is designated a “Quiet Lane”, although this designation seems to be more of an aspiration that an achievement when motor traffic is still allowed with no speed limit. At the corner was a bank with wild strawberry Fragaria vesca and greater stitchwort Stellaria holostea. Down this lane the path mentioned in square brackets above emerges from the wood. The lane continues through woodlands adjacent to Ipsden Heath and at the first junction we turned sharp left and then first right, finally taking the footpath on the left that passes through Yewtree Brow, following a forestry track.
Yewtree Brow wood
This is heavily rutted but one is following the bottom of a valley with beautiful flowery slopes of bluebells and other spring flowers rising on each side, which have no doubt benefited from the recent extraction of the alien pines.
Bluebells, Yewtree Brow
The downside of the forestry activity, however, was the frequent shoots of Indian balsam Impatiens glandulifera appearing by the track throughout the wood – no doubt the seeds are being carried in the mud on vehicle tyres and are thus well distributed. This could become a major nuisance.
Near the entrance, coming up by a pile of pine logs, were several spikes of Solomon’s seal, unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the garden variety with ridged stems and larger flowers Polygonatum x hybridum, the native plant being extremely rare hereabouts these days.
Garden Solomon’s-seal
One of the native plants doing particularly well along here was yellow pimpernel Lysimachia nemorum, which formed large patches with dense displays of bright flowers. We have never seen such a good display of this plant before.
Yellow pimpernel patch
Yellow pimpernel
Several patches of tall spikes of bugle Ajuga reptans added to the colour, especially with the bluebells beginning to go over.
Bugle
Although too late for the flowers, there were many patches of wood-sorrel Oxalis acetosella. There was the odd stand of redcurrant Ribes rubrum. There was also a little red campion Silene dioica, a flower we used to take as common but which seems more restricted these days.
Red campion
A red kite flew up from the trees – we saw fewer of these than during our last walk near Stokenchurch, although we did see as many or more buzzards. A green woodpecker and the occasional wren flew across the track. We also saw a red-headed cardinal beetle Pyrochroa serraticornis, the commonest of the cardinal beetles, whose larvae feed within dead wood.
We walked the length of this track until near the end of the wood when, obscured by a large patch of nettle Urtica dioica, another track came off sharply back to the left and rose up the hill. It was darker and barer up here, with sparse flowers, although still some bluebells, dominated in the greener areas by dog’s mercury Mercurialis perennis. To the right is a bank and ditch marking a medieval woodland boundary, topped by coppiced hazels Corylus avellana, which were also frequent at the top of the slope. A large stand of laurel Prunus laurocerasus has got a grip here too. Just before this path reaches the road you can stay within the wood by taking another forestry track to the left, which gradually bends right and follows back along the original valley, half-way up the slope from the path by which we entered. This passed through more patches of bluebell. Eventually this track led into a footpath that climbs to Scot’s Farm, again through many bluebells. By a small pool on the right there were several clumps of lady fern Athyrium filix-femina which seeks out the damper spots and is much rarer here than male fern Dryopteris filix-mas and broad buckler fern Dryopteris dilatata.
As we approached the farm we again encountered invasive garden plants like Himalayan honeysuckle Leycesteria formosa and buddleia Buddleja davidii, once encouraged for its butterfly-attracting properties, but now less popular because of its over-running native plants (while many of the garden varieties actually seem not to attract that many butterflies anyway). They had not, however, eliminated a clump of grey sedge Carex divulsa divulsa. After a row of houses we reached a lane and crossed, taking a footpath to the right of a pond that took us to the far corner of another small bluebell wood. Here we passed to the left of a house and into another lane. Two footpaths start opposite, one up through the wood to the main road into Stoke Row and the other outside the wood through cow-pasture to Dogmore End. We wanted to take the latter, but the whole herd of cows was resting in the shade right up to the stile and to enter we would have had to walk over the cows which, being with young calves, would no doubt have been less than happy with the intrusion. Fortunately it was not too much farther to stay on the lane (another Quiet Lane) going east to another road going north to Dogmore End. The hedgerows along this lane are varied and probably more pleasant than cow pasture anyway!
At Dogmore End we could pick up our intended route again by going right along a footpath through semi-improved pasture leading to the edge of Stoke Row. After a narrow belt of trees we continued diagonally across horse-pastures full of meadow buttercup Ranunculus acris.
Meadow buttercups
Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna bushes (“may” in May) were also in full flower, as if covered with snow, this being a very good year for them.
May flowers
At the far corner over stile into a small lane the latest OS map still shows a footpath immediately opposite going on east. The route only took us into the gardens of a private house! We found we could pick up the path by going north along the lane and then taking a fenced path off right which leads into the wood beyond the house, but here the fork off left we wished to take was unmarked and the path not evident, so we continued east to Busgrove Lane and north up there. We did find a path leading back where we had intended to come, but it was no longer signed as public footpath. One on the right, however, was open to take us along the back of houses through another little wood into another lane. Turning left here, we crossed the main road through Stoke Row and went up Newlands (Nottwood) Lane which, after three right-hand bends, took us to the Crooked Billet for a lunch break. Just before the pub we noted a stand of greater celandine Chelidonium majus and another clump of grey sedge. There are tables outside and in at the Crooked Billet, and excellent food and drink, so you may expect to take quite a long break!
Crooked Billet
[An alternative which avoids the difficult footpaths above is to follow the lane at the end of the horse paddocks to the centre of Stoke Row, where a visit can be made to see the Maharajah’s well. In the early 1860s this deep well was built with Indian-style architecture, funded by the Maharajah of Benares in return for the building of a well in an Indian village by the squire at the time, Edward Reade. You can then find the Crooked Billet by walking from the other end of Nottwood Lane. This is also a slightly shorter route.]
After our break we returned a short way east along Nottwood Lane to where a footpath comes off left and descends through Bush Wood down to Newnhamhill Bottom. In this wood a rhododendron was flowering profusely. It had large pink flowers and a more open straggly growth than the usual species, and appeared unlikely to colonise as vigorously as the latter. It was probably the cultivar “Pink Pearl”.
Rhododendron “Pink Pearl”
Otherwise the wood is a mixture of beech and pine plantations. Coming to the road at the bottom we continued across this and the next road in the same direction, passing goldilocks buttercup Ranunculus auricomus and three-nerved sandwort Moehringia trinervia (as it is now called after the Latin specific name, although the old “three-veined” seems a more natural English appellation). Here by the roadside was heath woodrush Luzula multiflora, as told by the length of the anthers and its tufted growth, rather than spreading.
This path enters a paved private lane between hedgerows, which made a very easy walk. Opposite some houses was a large-flowered forgetmenot, the flowers 11mm across, larger than others we had seen before. It was plainly wood forgetmenot Myosotis sylvatica. Stace’s manual gives a maximum of 8mm and most other texts 10mm, although BSBI’s plant crib says that it can exceptionally reach 11mm. It was no doubt a garden escape here, as wood forgetmenot always seems to be these days. Unfortunately the books never give a way of separating plants of native and garden origin and they unfortunately seem to be indistinguishable. The colony here all had large flowers of the same size and so seemed to be a consistent variety.
Wood forgetmenot
The track enters Nott Wood, where it is unpaved but still wide and relatively easy to walk. This is beechwood and here we found a true woodland woodrush which had the upright seed-heads of Luzula forsteri, but leaves a little wider than 4mm, closer to Luzula pilosa. This may have been the hybrid between the two woodrushes Luzula x borreri. Interestingly here the beech-dominated areas are largely bare beneath, but areas planted to pine are much greener with plants. This is presumably because the beech trees are older and the ground beneath them has been shaded for much longer.
At the far edge of the wood we turned right along another paved track between the wood and a wheat field. The crops were sown right to the edge of a strip of established grass, leaving no room for much in the way of arable annuals beyond a few small common speedwells. The paved track bends right, following the wood-edge, and here there is an alternative footpath just inside the wood. This follows two wide ditches with a wide bank between, larger and more elaborate than many boundary markers. We took the footpath off to the left at the crest of the hill, this again being paved. Linnets were using the hedges along here. The undergrowth fronting the hedges was mainly cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris and nettles, the latter being appropriate to the community we were now closely approaching – Nettlebed!
Seven-spot ladybirds enjoying stinging nettle
Nettle-bed provides a backdrop for green alkanet
The origin of the name of this village is unclear. According to the parish council website nettles “grow in abundance around the area” but then where don’t they? The area was settled in prehistoric times but is not mentioned in the Domesday Book and the name sounds relatively modern. It seems possible that it was coined in the C17-18th when a local cottage industry evolved making threads from nettles for linen goods. It seems likely that plots of land would then have been left, perhaps even fertilised, to encourage nettles as a raw product.
House martins flew around the buildings as we approached Nettlebed Church, and red-legged partridges flew on to the walls and down to the churchyard behind. Here was hedgerow cranesbill Geranium pyrenaicum. Across the track from the church were two willows, one an ornamental weeping willow Salix x sepulcralis, and the other a golden willow Salix alba var. vitellina, of the sort once grown in this region for basket-making.
Golden willow (left) & weeping willow (right)
Golden willow twig
Another local industry is indicated by the church itself, which was a Victorian replacement (1840s) of a far older one, of little architectural interest but made of red brick, appropriately commemorating the brick-making industry that flourished here at that time and survived until the 1930s. A drive to the house by the road had rosy garlic Allium roseum proliferating in a border, planted of course, but it spreads readily, as we have found in our own garden.
Rosy garlic
The trail continues across the A4130 and led into the centre of Nettlebed, and by a series of allotments took us to another road where Bushes Lane also emerges on the left. We took this un-surfaced lane all the way to Huntercombe-end Lane. As it passes Bushes Farm it is a reasonable guess that the name has nothing to do with anything botanical but refers to a farmer named Bush! Even so it is obviously an ancient route, sunken a little in places between banks, which themselves are topped by coppiced hazels and larger trees that were once laid long ago, though it is probably no older than late medieval.
Old laid hedge along Bushes Lane
There is the occasional ancient tree, indicating an age of several hundred years at least. The oak Quercus robur right at the beginning of the lane (which can be seen best from the path through the allotments) was at least 350cm in girth, and a beech just after it was 476cm, a truly phenomenal tree. We only noticed later that the OS map marks an “Oak” along Bushes Lane where a field boundary reaches it from the south. We presumed this was an ancient boundary marker tree, but we had not seen it, perhaps something else took our attention as we passed, so if anyone else knows anything about this tree, and whether it still exists, we would be interested to know. Very few trees reach the status of being mapped by the OS!
At Huntercombe-end Lane we turned left and followed it to a footpath on the right, just after a couple of houses, took us through Park Wood (taking a left hand path through the centre of the wood to the western corner, avoiding the one even further left that is not a public right of way and goes along the south edge of the wood). This wood again had plenty of yellow archangel and bluebell, although most of the latter were by now in seed. On a tree-stump near the end of this path we saw yellow slime-mould Fuligo septica var. flava (otherwise known as dog-vomit slime-mould!), which can move across a wide area stealthily in search of food. We came out of the wood on the A4130 again and walked alongside it to just past the Crown Inn, where you reach the Ridgeway Trail crossing the road. Opposite the Crown, in the verge, was a clump of spiked sedge Carex spicata. On the right is a small wood, Gangsdown Hill Wood, which, according to our notes (we no longer remember where the information came from) is a prime spot for woodruff. It may have been so once, but now all the patches of woodruff are swamped by dog’s mercury.
We crossed the road, which takes some patience awaiting gaps in the fast traffic. Steps up the bank took us along the marked trail and then through the golf course which now encompasses the whole of Nuffield Common. The common is marked as “access land” but that is contradicted by notices telling walkers to beware of golf balls and not to leave the route marked by white-marked posts. The common was probably once a pleasant heath but all that remains of that now is the odd clump of heather Calluna vulgaris or gorse Ulex europaeus marooned in a sea of closely mown grass. We emerged at the road into Nuffield (only a handful of houses) opposite the church, turned right and then left to continue the trail southwards beside a barley field and then along a narrow belt of beech trees, with more goldilocks buttercup and wood anemone beside the path, and plenty of bluebell, wood melick and wood millet Milium effusum.
The Ridgeway Trail turns right to follow Grym’s Dyke instead of the Ridgeway, but we kept straight on to Ridgeway Farmhouse, which must have been on the original Ridgeway, though there is no evidence of the ancient route here at all. The path goes round the Farmhouse, showing presumably that it was built right upon the ancient road, and then continues south, crossing two lanes, the second one at Homer Farm. The trail from here is fenced tightly on both sides and has been allowed to grow to tall nettle for 200 metres. We were unable to avoid getting stung. Eventually we were relieved to reach Ipsden Heath wood once more, climbing up the hill past lots of woodruff and turning left along another track to reach the road where we were parked.
