Hambleden – The Beyonder

WHEN you visit Turville for the first time, don’t be surprised if the place looks familiar.

So many films and TV shows have been shot in and around this picturesque Buckinghamshire village that a sense of deja vu is almost unavoidable.

**LOCAL LANDMARK:** the Bull and Butcher in Turville

From the Vicar of Dibley and Midsomer Murders to Killing Eve and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the quaint buildings frozen in time against the glorious backdrop of the Hambleden Valley are often indelibly etched on our memories.

Isn’t that the windmill in which Dick van Dyke – sorry, Caractacus Potts – lived with the children back in 1968 when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hit the big screen?

And isn’t that Geraldine Granger’s cottage in The Vicar of Dibley? And the church where she preaches?

Don’t worry, you’re not imagining it – you really have seen these places before.

In fact Geraldine’s Grade II-listed home in the grounds of St Mary the Virgin Church hit the national headlines when it went up for sale in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.

But then this is the English countryside at it’s best, so it’s not surprising that the ramblers and sightseers flock here at weekends, sometimes clogging the narrow country lanes as they explore the pretty villages, historic churches and cosy pubs that they’ve seen on TV.

Most are keen to combine a leisurely ramble with a sociable Sunday lunch in a classic country pub, so hostelries like Turville’s Bull and Butcher are popular watering holes.

**SCENE OF THE CRIME:** on the Midsomer Murders trail

Built in 1550, the quintessentially English pub boasts large open fires and original beams in the winter and a large sunny garden and patio area for warm summer days.

**SUNNY SPOT:** the Bull and Butcher garden

Owners Brakspear know there’s nothing like a walk in the countryside to work up an appetite, so they’ve produced a handy free app describing dozens of circular walks around many of their pubs, some like the Bull boasting downloadable leaflets you can print out too.

**BREATH OF FRESH AIR:** pub walks around Turville

A trio of walks feature on the Turville leaflet, ranging from an hour-long wander round the village taking in the church and distinctive Cobstone Windmill – a smock mill dating from around 1816 that was owned by the actress Hayley Mills in the 1970s – to longer and slightly more demanding routes taking you further afield to the villages of Skirmett, Frieth and Fingest.

**STAGING POST:** the Chequers in Fingest

Incorporating clear directions, pictures and some useful snippets about local history, there are similar leaflets covering routes around other Brakspear pubs in the valley.

Weekend ramblers in this part of the world are also likely to stumble across fans of the Midsomer Murders detective series hot on the trail of DCI Barnaby, thanks to a downloadable guide to the Hambleden Valley launched in 2018.

**ON LOCATION:** the Midsomer Murders guide

The 17-mile circular route from Marlow to Hambleden, Fingest, Lane End and Frieth features locations from the TV series and includes tourist attractions like the Chiltern Valley Winery and Brewery and Lacey’s Farm.

**MURDER TRAIL:** Neil Dudgeon as DCI John Barnaby

But this valley is a veritable magnet for ramblers, cyclists and nature lovers, and if you want a friendly guide to an even wider range of picturesque routes around the area, Chilterns-based runner, trekker and “general mud-lover” Richard Gower has a whole range of illustrated walks on his website.

**VALLEY VIEW:** Richard Gower outside Hambleden *PICTURE: Timea Kristof*

AS picture postcard English villages go, they don’t get any quainter than Hambleden.

This is the ultimate cliché, the stuff of jigsaw puzzles, chocolate boxes and tourism brochures.

Pretty flint-and-brick cottages jostle round an impressive medieval church in a village set in a broad open valley overlooked by hills topped with mature beech woods.

Nestled into the Chiltern Hills close to the River Thames between Henley and Marlow, this is your quintessentially English scene, mentioned in the Domesday Book and still providing the perfect starting place for a family rambles.

Predictably popular with film crews and providing a backdrop for a variety of murder mysteries and children’s classics like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Nanny McPhee Returns and 101 Dalmatians, the village nowadays forms part of the impressive Culden Faw Estate, some 3,500 acres of woods, rolling pastures, parkland and unspoilt chalk valleys. (It also had a slightly darker role as Tadfield, home of the Anti-Christ and his friends, in the 2019 mini-series Good Omens.)

On a sunny Saturday, it resembles a scene from The Darling Buds Of May, with children playing in the brook beside a footpath that stretches invitingly into the distance. Just “perfick”, as Pop Larkin might have put it.

This unspoilt setting is an important staging post on the Chiltern Way, a 134-mile perambulation around the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which manages to encompass all the most characteristic features of a historic Chilterns landscape, including those quaint villages, ancient beeches and crystal-clear chalk streams.

Opened in 2000 and maintained by Chiltern Society volunteers, this is one of the most dramatic sections, taking ramblers from the woods of Marlow Common towards the hamlet of Rotten Row and down into Hambleden, before looping north to Skirmett, Fingest and Turville.

Suitable for walkers of all abilities, the route is well signposted and popular, but for those who want to keep Hambleden as their base, there are numerous circular possibilities in the area, including one trail on the National Trust website.

This circular five-mile walk initially ascends the east side of the Hambleden Valley, descends through the hamlet of Pheasants Hill and then explores the west side before returning to the village from the south, following the route of the Hambleden Brook.

Back in the village hungry walkers gather outside the Village Stores & Post Office for coffee, cake and scones, or adjourn to the Stag and Huntsman Inn for a meal or refreshing pint.

Walkers wanting to tackle the Chiltern Way can find out more about the route from Pete Collins, who chronicles each stage of the journey in some detail on his blog.

And for those looking for something more than a leisurely amble round the village, there are plenty of alternatives – like the Thames and Chilterns walk highlighted on the Chilterns AONB website, which takes you from Henley-on-Thames along the Thames Path National Trail and back via Aston. You can even combine the walk with a boat trip on the Thames between Easter and October.

In the village itself, the key attraction by the old village pump is the fascinating medieval St Mary the Virgin church, an imposing structure boasting a beautiful Norman font and a range of other historical features including a bell tower with eight bells, the oldest of which may first have been rung at around the time of victory at Agincourt in 1415.

Apart from the ornate ceiling detail, there are a variety of features spanning the centuries to engage the visitor’s interest.

In the north transept, the oldest part of the church, is a magnificent monument to Sir Cope D’Oyley (d 1633), his wife Martha and their ten children. In traditional Jacobean fashion, the figures are portrayed kneeling, facing each other, with some of the children carrying skulls to show that they died before their parents.

Inside the church you can also find out about Saint Thomas Cantilupe, born locally and, in 1320, the last Englishman to be canonised before the Reformation; and see the sea chest taken to the Crimea by Lord Cardigan, who led the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in 1854.

But then there are associations spanning all the centuries here, from a small brass plaque on the south wall of the nave to WH Smith, the famous bookseller, who was a churchwarden at Hambleden, to the grave of Deep Purple rock legend Jon Lord, who lived locally for many years.

Tag: Hambleden

Idyllic village where fact meets fiction

Take an amble around Hambleden