Pete's Walks- Cowleaze Wood, Ibstone, Chinnor (page 2 of 6)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
I turned right along the road towards Christmas Common, but before reaching the sign at the start of the village I turned left onto a footpath that started along a drive. When the drive turned right the path went straight on into a wood, soon curving left. When I reached a path T-junction I turned right, but only for only one or two hundred yards, before going left when the path forked in two (at both these last two junctions, I noticed that the white arrows on the trees were a few feet short of the actual junctions). This path now dropped very gradually downhill through Shortridge Wood and then Blackmoor Wood.
The start of the path from Christmas Common to the Wormsley valley
The path from Christmas Common to the Wormsley valley (this is just after I turned right and just before I forked left)
The path continuing downhill through Shortridge Wood
The path continuing downhill through Shortridge Wood
The path continuing downhill through Shortridge Wood
The path continuing downhill through Shortridge Wood (or possibly it's now Blackmoor Wood)
The path continuing downhill through Blackmoor Wood
After about half a mile I went straight on where another path turned right. The path continued downhill gently (I passed a group of three walkers coming the other way here, almost the only ones I'd see on the whole walk) and then flattened out, still in Blackmoor Wood. I continued straight on where the Chiltern Way route came in on my right, and soon after reached a drive on the Wormsley Estate. I turned right for a few yards, then took a footpath on the left. This crossed an empty pasture, went over another of the Wormsley Estate drives, then crossed a much larger grassy field (with a strip of maize down the left-hand side). I thought the fog had lifted as I'd walked through the woods, but here in the Wormsley Valley it was still a little misty. The path then crossed a bridleway and followed a fence on my left slowly uphill through a very large empty field. There was then a short but steep pull uphill through part of Commonhill Wood, until I met a bridleway. Here I turned right, and followed the bridleway much less steeply up to the top of the hill and Ibstone Common.
The path continuing downhill through Blackmoor Wood
The path across the Wormsley valley (still misty, at about 11:45am)
View over the Wormsley valley, from where the path enters Commonhill Wood
The bridleway rising up through Commonhill Wood to Ibstone
The bridleway rising up through Commonhill Wood to Ibstone
I followed the Chiltern Way signs, and turned left here, following a bridleway through the wooded northern tip of Ibstone Common, passing two or three ponds amongst the trees. At the end of the bridleway, I turned left along the road through Ibstone. After the last house on the right, I took a footpath that started through part of that house's garden.
The bridleway through the wooded part of Ibstone Common, after I turned left
The start of the path from Ibstone, going through a garden before entering Hartmoor Wood