GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

Finemere Hill

This wheat field is fairly flat despite being relatively high up, at least for Buckinghamshire, and is quite remote. Although not marked as such on any OS map, this is part of Finemere Hill. There is however a Finemerehill House, SP7122 : Finemerehill House. The hill is as much a plateau with high points of 129m one kilometre to the west, 137m just behind the camera, and another 137m high point 700m to the east.

On the left in the distance is Balmore Wood, and to the right is Runt's Wood, and the hill and surrounding area is notable for its very high density of woodland cover, the majority of which is ancient woodland, including Finemere Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which lies to the south, SP7221 : Finemere Wood. There is no road access to the area but a good network of public rights of way. The east-west bridleway along the top of the hill, which is behind the camera, affords panoramic views.

From this plateau, which is of Jurassic mudstone covered with till and glacial deposits, the land gradually slopes down to the north, but to the south it is much steeper.

This high ground lies on the watershed between the Thames and the Ouse. From the lower slopes to the north near the Claydons, the streams flow into the Claydon Brook, which via Padbury Brook and the Lovatt, flows into the Ouse and then out to the Wash. The stream on the south of the hill is close to the source of the River Ray, which flows into the Cherwell, which itself joins the Thames in Oxford. The watershed is irregular however in that one stream which starts in the woods to the left of the photograph flows north briefly, then west, and then south to join the River Ray just north of Grendon Wood, SP6921 : Meeting of streams of the River Ray.

Finemere may be a corruption of 'Fenn', Anglo-Saxon for a fen, marsh, mud or dirt, and 'Moor', a moor or heath, or 'Mere', a lake or pool, and this may refer the area through which the river Ray flows south of Finemere Wood.