Pete's Walks - Coombe Hill and Redland End (page 2 of 5)
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 continued along the bridleway through the wood (after a while there was a field close by on my left) until I came to a junction with a crossing bridleway. Here I went straight on along a footpath, now in a wood called High Scrubs. After a while the path appeared to turn left, but in fact the right of way goes straight on for a few more yards before then turning left. I then soon came to a path junction, where I turned right, this path dropping a short way downhill through the wood to reach a lane (the Coombe Hill car park is about half a mile to the right here). I went a short way to the left, then took a path on the other side of the lane which ran through Fugsdon Wood. After a couple of hundred yards or so I had to be careful to bear slightly left past a stile in a short bit of wooden fencing amongst the beech trees. Further on I went straight ahead at a path crossroads, the path then gradually descending until it reached a five-way junction. Here I went straight on (with a path on my left and two on my right), the path going briefly uphill as it continued through what was now Chisley Wood. Eventually I came to a path junction, where I turned a few yards left to reach the end of an old lane (coming from Buckmoorend, half a mile to the right, where I'd meet it again later in the walk).
The path in High Scrubs, it goes to the RIGHT of the tree in the center of the short, turning left after a few yards
The path in High SCrubs after I turned right, dropping down to the lane
The start of the path through Fugsdon Wood
The path through Fugsdon Wood
The path through Fugsdon Wood
The path through Fugsdon Wood, approaching the five-way junction
The path continuing through Chisley Wood
The path continuing through Chisley Wood
The path continuing through Chisley Wood
I went a few yards right along the old lane, almost immediately spotting a Silver-washed Fritillary. which obligingly posed for a photograph, and then turned left onto another woodland path, this now being Hengrove Wood. The path was soon dropping downhill (I spotted another Fritillary here), and when I came to a path junction I turned left. At the bottom of the slope I went straight on where another path (not a right of way) seemed to come in from the right. On then soon reaching a path junction where a path went left, I took that path and followed it through what was now Widnell Wood. The path rose very gently uphill over quite a distance - when a track forked right and downhill I went straight on (a yellow arrow indicated the track was a footpath but I think that's a mistake, it's not on the OS map). A little further on I spotted another Silver-washed Fritillary, I seem to be seeing a lot of them this year. At the next path junction I turned sharply right, and followed this path down through the wood, meeting the track I'd seen earlier just before it left the wood.
Near the start of the path through Hengrove Wood
The path descending through Hengrove Wood
The first junction where I went left in Hengrove Wood
The path after I turned left a second time in Hengrove Wood
The path continuing through Widnell Wood
The path continuing through Widnell Wood (the white arrow pointing right is wrong, that is not a public footpath according to the OS map)
The path after I turned sharp right in Widnell Wood