There are loads of things I love about the location of my livery yard, but unfortunately the off-road hacking isn’t one of them. We’re incredibly lucky to have an off-road ride around our fields that we can use whenever we like, but in terms of local bridleways, there’s only really one nearby – and it’s about 500m long, connecting two roads together. There’s definitely nowhere you can go for a good gallop!
So at the end of August Belle and I, along with our friends Jo and Jack and Emma and Harley, took a trip down to Cholsey Farm for the day to explore the Chiltern Hills. We’d seen Cholsey Farm on Facebook, and thought that as it wasn’t too far from us we could go and check it out and hopefully let the horses have a blast somewhere.
It was mega easy to get to, just straight off the M40 and you’re pretty much there. When we arrived, we were given a warm welcome by Jackie and Ted who showed us this wall that was literally FULL of route maps. Each one was a different circular route from Cholsey Farm of varying durations, and you could choose one that suited you. Our two essential criteria were finding somewhere to canter and somewhere to have lunch (obviously. It’s all about the food) and Jackie sorted us out with a route that would let us do just that.
Armed with our map, we set off from Cholsey Farm and followed the route round. The instructions were mega clear and easy to read, so we could just enjoy ourselves without worrying that we were going to end up lost in the Chiltern Hills forever.
We headed out of Ibstone and towards Turville, took a turn past the Vicar of Dibley’s church and up into a big open uphill field that we were able to race up (waiting for a few walkers to reach the bottom of the hill first!) The directions weren’t kidding when they said to make sure you stop and admire the view from the top!
We had another canter in the next field and then went along a few paths to the Barn at Turville Heath, a quirky little car-free cafe which had tie points for the horses and some yummy options for lunch. A few people came over to pet the horses too, so we all felt quite special.
After lunch we started heading back to Cholsey Farm, via a pretty hilarious pheasant farm (apparently it was pheasant breeding season – who knew – and the baby pheasants were flying out of the bushes in front of us from all directions. Just what you want when you’re out on your horse!)
A final canter along the outside of the Common at Ibstone, and we were back at Cholsey Farm. The horses had definitely enjoyed themselves, and we had too! We highly recommend it – it was great to be able to ride somewhere completely different and with that many routes to choose from, we’ll definitely be going back!
You can take a look at Cholsey Farm’s website here – they also do riding holidays and the cottage you could stay in looked lovely. I bumped into a really nice lady in the loo who said they’d had a fantastic stay in the cottage, even though they only lived down the road!
Here’s a few of our pictures from the day:
Totally Amateur Eventing 