 Is the church open? Yes, it's open. When we get to Hedgeley Green, I've got a ghost story to tell you. Glad I wore my wellies today. Hello, thank you for joining me on this winter's day. I'm in the Buckinghamshire village of Hedgeley. As you can see, it's quite cold. The pond is frozen over. Today is the first of a new series of videos I'm going to do called Classic Village of England. I'm going to go to a village like this, have a look around the village, perhaps go for a walk around some of the surrounding footpaths and see what there is. Before we get on and explore Hedgeley, I just want to say if you do like my videos, please do like them, share them, comment and subscribe. That all really helps the channel. Now, Hedgeley is where we are today. We're down by the village pond. There's a few ducks there on the non-frozen part of the pond. Some cottages there called the Dean Cottages on the other side. Up on the hill over there, just hiding in the trees is the church of St. Mary the Virgin. We're going to walk up there and have a look. I'm not sure at this stage if we're going to get inside, but we'll certainly go up to the church and have a look. To give you an idea of where we are, we are in Buckinghamshire, but we're right down in the southern corner of Buckinghamshire. If you follow the road up that way, a couple of miles or so, you come to George Cross and if you go down the road that way, you'll go to Stoke Poges first and then eventually Slough. So that's where we are in Buckinghamshire. What we're going to do, we'll walk up, as I said, through the village. Now, the village dates back to Roman times. If I follow the road up that way, I'll eventually come to Mote Farm, which is just by the motorway. And it's said that there's a Roman brick-making kiln there. So the village's traditional industry was making bricks. Now, if you look at this building here, this is the old schoolhouse. I imagine that would have been the school that's where the headmaster may have lived. Not a school any more. The village is probably a bit smaller to have a school. But I'm going to take a guess. Those bricks were probably fired here in Hedley. So that's what Hedley was famous for, brick-making. In Box Tunnel on the Great Western Railway down near Bath, Brunel used Hedley bricks for his Box Tunnel. So that gives you an idea of the quality of the bricks. As we walk up here, there's a larder park there. I wonder who put that there. If you've watched my videos before, you'll know that that is my larder, which I drive around the country and it's always good fun going out for a drive in a rare car. Such as a larder. Here is the White Horse Pub. That is a really good pub. I have been there in the past and there's all sorts of interesting ales and beers and it's really nice. It's got two halves. You've got to go in there. I'm not going to have a drink today, but it really is worth going in there. I'm going to go up there now, to Rose and Pond, and just down there, that's the pond where we started. And here is the church of St Mary the Virgin. I wonder if it's open. We'll go up here and have a look. If it is open, I'll be interested to see. Always, to me, you go to a village like this, always makes the visit more exciting if you can have a look in the church. Excuse me, I'm just trying to close the gate whilst holding camera. I just want to secure the gate. Right now I've come up into the church yard. It's a very nice setting for this church up here on the hill of the church yard. I don't know if you can hear it. I can just hear a faint noise of the motorway. That's not too far away. There's woodlands around here. I'm intending to walk around some of those woodlands in the church. Let's have a look. Is the church open? Here's the main question. I'm going to take my hat off in anticipation. Sorry about that hair, because men aren't supposed to wear hats in church. Is the church open? Yes, it's open. Let's have a look. I think I've got it to myself. So we can have a look inside. So here we are. The church of St Mary the Virgin. I understand the church was built in 1852. So it's probably not the original church on the site. It's obviously been various other churches here. Looking up the nave behind me. Not going to go in there, but that's probably where the vestry is. One interesting thing I've heard about this church is that King Charles II visited and he saw the altar and thought it was in a bit of a bad state and needed replacing. So it's alleged that he took off his cloak and placed it over the altar. So I don't think this is probably the same cloak from King Charles II. Interesting story to think that King Charles II has been here. Maybe that's the vestry in there. And here we have, I don't know too much about church organs, but here's the church organ. So that's good enough to have a look in the parish church. What I'm going to do now I'm going to go back out into the church yard and we'll walk through the woods. I thought we'll walk up to Hedgley Green which is another hamlet just outside Hedgley probably about half a mile or so away. The path up from Hedgley to Hedgley Green has that feeling of being an ancient drover's track. I can imagine in years gone by animals would have been driven along here going from Hedgley maybe heading towards Chalfonson Peter. Charles Cross wouldn't have been there at the time. I'm going to continue on here we'll soon be at Hedgley Green and when we get to Hedgley Green I've got a ghost story to tell you. So after walking half a mile or so I've arrived at the hamlet of Hedgley Green really is a very green place with a few houses dotted around there's a pond here there's a pond there and there's a pond there so there's quite a few ponds up here and we are up on the hill so it's quite nice to see this amount of water up here and as they were down the hill at Hedgley they are on the whole frozen this one's not quite so frozen perhaps it's a bit better sheltered than the other one now up here I have a ghost story to tell you down the hill from here beyond the village of Hedgley there was a country state called Hedgley Park now I understand the house has demolished in the 1930s so that's all gone but there is a stream and a few lakes I did once walk down through there and I have seen the lakes I'm not going to go there today it's a little bit further out the way but up here somewhere there was a little gamekeepers cottage for the house now in the late 18th century I understand an elderly lady lived there and unfortunately some men came and murdered her they were body snatchers so they murdered her took her body away then you know it's all very sad and everything but time to move on a family moves into the house well various families have moved into the house in the 1940s a little girl was put to bed one night and the next morning she asked her mother who this old lady was a nice old lady came and tucked her into bed it seemed a bit of a mystery they did research from previous families they said oh yeah she does come and she tucked our children into bed so it's said that that poor old lady is still in one of these cottages and she's got children she's a nice ghost not a nasty one she'll come and tuck them into bed so that's somewhere around here I'm going to continue down here I've not been this way before I don't know how if you can hear the motorway I find the sadist in videos I can hear a noise like say a motorway and it's not actually as clear to my viewers but over on the other side of the motorway is Ball Strobe Park now that was the house of Judge Jeffress so give you an idea what that was it'd be a great place to go and look around but it was all derelict when it used to, or teenager when it was owned by Weck International as I mentioned in the previous videos to go to the youth club up at Goldfield Baptist Church in Charleston Peter and we used to quite often go up there and play in their grounds it was great fun so it's all derelict or it was derelict it's been worked on and was been restored I'm not really quite sure what's going on if anyone knows what's going on over on the other side of the motorway Ball Strobe Park please comment I'd love to hear from you so I'm going to go down here down to this little valley and then I'll be able to walk on back towards the village of Hedgley one other thing going back to the Roman it's quite muddy the mud is a bit frozen I kept mentioning we've been nearly in faulted motorway you probably can now see it is just over there so I'm going to continue on down here down to this little valley one other thing going back to the Roman times if you were to follow that valley obviously before the motorway up on the hill over there there was a Roman fort I have been for a walk around there in my video called George Cross a Walk Back in Time if you'd like to see that have a look at the link on screen now you'll be able to see that video let's go back to Hedgley now not too far now so I get back to Hedgley I've just been following the line of those pylons along here we come to another junction of the paths there's a nature reserve there you can go and walk around there's also another path that goes that way now it goes off into the woods over there I mentioned Hedgley Park it doesn't exist anymore I said the cottage was part of the estate this would have probably all been in the Hedgley Park estate once if you were to go up there the footpath will eventually take you down to the lakes so if you were to go down there you'd come to those lakes and if you kept going you'll come to somewhere called the Pickering now that's an abandoned house I did make a video there a few years ago so if you want to see what that's about have a look at the link on screen now that's the Pickering I'm going to continue up here because I am nearly back to where I started in Hedgley so I'm going to follow this we should soon be back at the pond we've come full circle now we're just approaching the village pond where we started so we've had a nice little circular walk it's probably two and a half miles maybe I could have done a longer one it's already four o'clock now so now or so from now it will be dark which wouldn't be much fun doing this in the dark it's interesting isn't it it's these signs saying circular walk so maybe that's a walk for another day but as we started we are now back by the village pond hope you enjoyed this video as I said this is the first of a new series so I'm hoping to do more videos a bit like this all over England in the future so thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment and from the classic English village of Hedgley in Buckinghamshire goodbye