Wayland's Smithy and Uffington White Horse Circular Walk

Keen to press on with walking Jefferies Land, with brilliant sun forecast for last Sunday, that was the day I picked to attempt to visit Wayland's Smithy and Uffington White Horse. I started at the Ridgeway near the former Shepherd's Rest pub, now an Indian restaurant, the Burj; there's a reasonably sized car park on the Ridgeway at the start of the walk, and if you click on the link, there's a mention of buses to get you there.

 From the start of the walk, the countryside is stunning, above this is Charlbury Hill, it doesn't look like much,from this mobile phone photo, but it has a trig point of 253m on the top of it, further along there's a glorious valley

Next we came across a sign for Helen Browning's food at the Royal Oak in Bishopstone, I think we could have taken a side road down from the Ridgeway to the hotel to eat there, tempting, but there was still quite a lot of walking to be done.

We reached Wayland's Smithy long barrow quite quickly, read the  sign explaining that it's a long barrow and was used for burials over 5500 years ago in the Neolithic period. It's really impressive, and I was pleased to see there were lots of other people admiring the area

English Heritage who manage the site have some extra information here
When you click on opening times, it says from Jan-March 2018, they are in daylight, and then suggests they will look again after the end of March.

I took lots of photos of the entrance to the burial chamber where the large rocks are really imposing

The trees around the site were also beautiful against the blue sky

I can't decide which of these i like best, so have kept both

From there it's a short walk to White Horse Hill where there's Uffington Castle, one of the finest examples of an Iron Age Hill Fort and the beautiful Uffington White Horse with the 10m high Dragon Hill, a naturally formed 10m high hill, thought to have been formed by glaciation.

These photos show sheep on Uffington Hill.

The view from above the horse certainly makes the trip worthwhile. You can almost see Faringdon in the distance with a small mound that could be Faringdon Folly. Dragon Hill has a flat top and can just be seen in the foreground, beyond the shadow.

Here's the valley coming down from Whitehorse Hill. At 263 metres above sea level, the hill isn't much higher than out first hill, Charlbury Hill.

Having reached both Waylands Smithy and Whitehorse Hill, we descended from Dragon Hill to Woolstone to the fabulous White Horse Inn where we stopped for a drink and a snack.

Suitably refreshed we decided to take the low road home, making the route circular. The first place we walked through was the gorgeous village of Compton Beauchamp, this is what Wikipedia says:
Compton Beauchamp is a hamlet and civil parish 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Shrivenham in the Vale of White Horse, England. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. The 2001 Census recorded the parish's population as 50, I wonder how much more it is now? 
The first place you see from the footpath leading from Woolstone is this wonderful house, at the end of a moss covered driveway.

It's Compton Beauchamp House (sometimes Compton House) is a Grade I listed building in Compton Beauchamp, Oxfordshire. The house was originally built in the 16th century but its interior was remodelled and its front rebuilt in the Baroque in around 1710. It was owned by the Fettiplace family and is a Grade I listed. There are quite a few buildings around the road we walked along through Compton Beauchamp, I was interested to see this lean to greenhouse in full sun in mid afternoon.

and rather a lovely weather vane with a horse depicted on top of a stable

The Church of England parish church of Saint Swithun is 13th century and is built of chalk. The east window is a Decorated Gothic insertion and the north transept east window is early 14th century. The font is a Perpendicular Gothic addition. The mural on the chancel walls was painted by members of James Bacon's family, principally Lydia Lawrence.

The reredos, rood and altar rail were made by the artist Martin Travers in the 1930s under the patronage of the banking heir and publisher, Samuel Gurney, who lived at the time in the Old Rectory.

From Compton Beauchamp, the footpath took us across a ploughed field towards Odstone Farm and Kingstone Winslow, I was very impressed by the fact we had a path cleared for us to walk along.

The path went by a lovely cottage dated 1792 beside a pond

Here's the pond, all rather idyllic

At Bishopstone, we decided to take the route up to the Ridgeway rather then the road to Hinton Parva and then bridleway to the Ridgeway. It was a bit of a climb, but a lovely end to a great walk.

It was almost 4pm by the time we reached the end of the route, the sun was setting and I'd clocked up 14 miles on my Fitbit.