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Newnham Hill Wooded Descent – Stoke Row Wooded Road loop from Radnage

Newnham Hill Wooded Descent – Stoke Row Wooded Road loop from Radnage

Moderate

riders

Newnham Hill Wooded Descent – Stoke Row Wooded Road loop from Radnage

02:20

54.2km

430m

Road cycling

Moderate road ride. Good fitness required. Mostly well-paved surfaces and easy to ride. The starting point of the route is accessible with public transport.

Last updated: July 16, 2026

Tips

Your route passes through a protected area

Please check local regulations for:

Chilterns National Landscape

Waypoints

Start point

Bus stop

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6.42 km

Ridgeway Countryside View, Chilterns National Landscape

Highlight • Viewpoint

20.5 km

Newnham Hill Wooded Descent

Highlight (Segment) • Viewpoint

A fun descent if going west to east (steady climb the other way). Tree lined all year, so keep an eye out for leaves/mulch on the road in autumn.

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21.5 km

Maharajah's Well and the Golden Elephant Statue

Highlight • Monument

A gilded elephant stands on top of the cast iron machinery of this unique Victorian well at Stoke Row, Oxfordshire, an amazing gift from an Indian prince.

The 368-foot deep well, under its domed canopy (made by a foundry in Wallingford), was paid for by the Maharajah of Benares (now Varanasi). He had met the young Edward Reade, the local squire, who spent many years in India where among other work he helped to sink a well for a village in Benares. He told the Maharajah that drought conditions also occurred on parts of the Chilterns.

Moved by Reade's stories of water shortage in Ipsden (the parish which then included the settlement of Stoke Row) – the water had to be fetched by hand from miles away – the Maharajah paid for a well to be dug in Stoke Row, at a cost of around £400, as well as a small well-keeper's cottage and a cherry orchard. The cherries from the orchard provided an income to help pay for the well’s upkeep.

The well is 4 feet in diameter, dug by hand mostly through chalk, and is deeper that the height of two Nelson's columns. It took a year to complete and was opened on the Queen’s birthday in 1864. The well was in use for over 70 years and was a huge benefit to Stoke Row as a community.
Prince Philip's visit to mark the well's centenary in 1964 is still remembered in the hand-coloured red helicopter on every copy of the village newsletter, the Stoke Row News.

In 2008 the canopy was re-painted to restore it to its original Victorian glory.

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