Owlswick and Longwick (Swans Way 10)

Our tenth leg of the Swans Way walk and a figure of eight route to optimise  time on the pathway. My walking Buddy had already warned me when he sent me the map that it didn't look a very interesting route. 'Lots of Fields' I think was the quote. 

Many times in the past we have had the same feeling only to proved quite wrong. Perhaps this will be another of those occasions? 

The weather was hardly inspiring either. Dull and overcast with the risk of showers was the forecast. Still, given the fact that it had rained solidly for two days, at least it was dry for now at least.

Given the experience earlier in the week when falling over the electric fence , I'm taking no chances today. Long trousers are the order of the day and a first aid kit is packed! Well a few  plasters and an antiseptic wipe should suffice.

 

We start near to the village of Owlswick, which is nothing more than a Hamlet really about 3 miles east of Thame and 4 miles south east of Aylesbury. The name appears in a document of about 1200 as Ulveswike, meaning the dairy farm of Ulf, which was a Danish personal name. The district is well to the south of the Danelaw (Where in Old England the laws of the Danes held sway)but a man of Danish origin may have come south and settled here.

One house seems to have a pony residing quite comfortably in their front garden .....St Peters Chapel in Owlswick is a pretty looking building. The present chapel was built in 1866, but there was probably a church in the village of Owlswick in the northern tip of the parish from around the time of the Norman Conquest. In its earliest days the chapel served as a village school as well as a place of worship, and a few traces of the school remain to this day including the bell that is still rung for services.

 

We are off and running 'Into the Great Wide Open' to quote the late great Tom Petty. Although we are soon  curtailed by a very overgrown footpath. Not only long grass and overgrown bushes, but very wet too. I'm thankful for the long trousers on this occasion. There is a lovely old derelict barn that puts me in mind of the 'Dads  Army' episode where 'Fraser' (John Laurie)rolls his eyes and spins the yarn of 'The Old empty barn'. There is the odd Owl pellet but nothing very exciting really.   

We arrive at the point we got too last time and complete the first part of the figure eight. As we make our way back have the Chiltern Hills in the distance.  

Everywhere give or take a bit of brown is a lush green colour. No wonder it symbolises nature and the natural world. In ancient mythology, green was used to reference the fertility of the earth as well as the fertility of women. Definitely a calming colour though, so I find it a bit strange that they say someone is 'Green with envy'. Not to mention if you are poorly and look a bit green. 

Not much wildlife to report today either I'm afraid.  A few Goldfinches and the odd Red Kite are as much as I can report. 

We continue towards the small village of Ilmer, there is a signpost for the Church that sounds interesting? Unfortunately our path doesn't go that far though. We pass under the railway bridge and The Swans Way veers off to the left. We do see in the far distance Whiteleaf Cross, a chalk figure carved on the Chiltern slope near Princes Risborough.It is cross shaped with a triangular base om Whiteleaf Hill. 

The date and origin of the cross are unknown. It was mentioned as an antiquity by Francis Wise in 1742, but no earlier reference has been found. The cross is not mentioned in any description of the area before 1700. Unfortunately I couldn't get a decent photo as it was so far in the distance sadly.  

 

Points of interest on this part of the walk have really been few and far between. As something of a last resort I am reduced to taking a couple of photos of Railway bridges.

 In total we have covered a distance of 9 miles and about half of it on The Swans Way.