Walk with Ray via Bisham Woods and Cookham Dean, 6.8 miles

Monday 29 May (the Spring Bank Holiday)

We started this walk with a spot of disused road interest. Well, renamed road, in this case. Ray had to call in briefly to his employer’s premises and after this we stopped briefly on Hurley Lane where I took this picture of a road sign alerting drivers that they’ll be joining an A-road a short way ahead. The road in question hasn’t been the A423 since the early 1990s, when it was renamed the A4130. I guess the sign is in too insignificant a spot to be worth worrying about. Hurley Lane is a tiny road probably only used by residents and by locals who know it's a cut through to the A404.

For our walk, Ray parked in a layby on the A404 near Bisham that’s long been notorious for cruising – it happened to be a convenient parking spot for this walk and at the time we parked up was almost empty. The layby directly borders Temple Golf Club; when Ray worked at the club in the 1990s, there was an amusing, if possibly apocryphal, story circulating of a lady member coming across a scene in the undergrowth that she hadn’t expected and having to be revived with smelling salts or similar. Vegetation is cleared around the layby at intervals to discourage the chaps.

Leaving the layby on the A404 to start our walk

Following the newish bridleway

Walking out of the layby, we were able to take what Ray says is a fairly new bridleway (certainly my OS map doesn’t show it as such) leading off the eastern end of Hurley Lane and running alongside, but separated from, the A404 to come out on Bradenham Lane leading down to Temple village. Certainly nicer than walking/cycling along the edge of the dual carriageway for a short stretch, as you’d have had to do previously.

Bradenham Lane

We followed Bradenham Lane down to Temple village and followed the lane round to where it comes out on Bisham Road. We crossed and walked down The Green, which at one point, before the construction of the Marlow bypass in the early 1970s, ran through to what is now the marooned collection of houses labelled as ‘Bisham Under the Wood’. Ray noted that years ago, he and fellow greenkeepers from nearby Temple used to drive down this lane and store some equipment on some land owned by his then boss’s sister-in-law’s husband. The lane is now blocked off to traffic once you get past the houses at the village end. We briefly peered over the fence to look at the bit of land in question, but it’s all overgrown now.

Abandoned shed formerly used for storage

Ray had been hoping there’d be a tunnel under the A404 at this spot, but there isn’t, so we followed the footpath that leads along the edge of a field, then crossed the field to head towards something labelled on my map as ‘Flood Tunnels’, hoping they were also foot tunnels. Indeed they are, since 2005, according to a plaque at the end of one of them. The tunnel appears to be named the Bowdery Archway, after a member of the local Ramblers who led the campaign to open a footpath through it.

Crossing a field

Tunnel under the A404 Marlow bypass

The plaque

After walking through the tunnels we entered Bisham Woods and followed various paths, some quite hilly, to come out on Hockett Lane in Cookham Dean. Bisham Woods run along a ridge and comprise several smaller woods including Quarry Wood, Fullness Wood and Inkydown Wood.

Path in Bisham Woods

After leaving the wood we walked along roads through Cookham Dean and then joined a path crossing Cookham Dean Common, which was lovely. We then followed Winter Hill Road for a bit and dipped briefly onto the Maidenhead Boundary route to come out on Golden Ball Lane. We stopped off at the Golden Ball in vague hopes of getting lunch, but they had a private event on so weren't doing food. We had a nice cold drink though.

Cookham Dean Common

After leaving the pub we crossed the road and took a footpath leading off opposite - one I don't think I'd been down before, and I think Ray said he'd last been down it as a teenager. It eventually comes out at a junction of tiny lanes. We followed Dungrove Hill Lane back to the A404, passing under the road for a second time and walking back up a short spur of road back to the layby.

Dungrove Hill Lane

Our second tunnel under the A404

Ray said that at one point the lane off Burchetts Green roundabout, which currently leads to Temple Golf Club's greenkeeper sheds and then ends, used to be connected to this bit of road. Have just had a go at finding an old map online that shows this, but haven't managed it yet. It looks plausible, from Google Maps, though must have been before the golf course was constructed.

As we approached the layby where we'd parked, we passed a number of lone men standing on the grass verge just out of sight of the road, nonchalantly looking at their phones. I mean. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.

Our route shown here: