Originally Posted by
stut
As it happens, Great Missenden has a direct train service (on Chiltern Railways) to London Marylebone, and it's easy to reach Stratford upon Avon! However, the rest of your route could be tricky without a hire car. One-way hires tend not to happen so much in the UK, so they're expensive, but you may want to look at Sixt, who are more reasonable with the one-way surcharges (and have their site handily located next to Hatton Cross).
Personally, I find Stratford (unless you're specifically there to see a play) and Stonehenge very disappointing - in the West of England, I'd be more inclined to head to the Devon or Cornish coast.
Saddly Sixt told me that they would only do one way rentals between London locations and to Manchester. But good to know about the train. And also after some searching I have found Europcar having one way rates that are not that unreasonable.
Thanks for the info about the train we will look into that if only to avoid driving a rental car out of downtown London it may be worth it.
I have defiantly read that I should not expect much from Stonehenge but it is one of those things that I feel we have to go and do once (but maybe not take that long at). Stratford is somewhere my wife wants to go but maybe we will rethink just how long we stay.