Pete's Walks - Great Kimble, Green Hailey, Buckmoorend (page 3 of 3)
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.
After about a third of a mile I came to a path T-junction where I turned right, now in Hengrove Wood. After a short way, the path turned left and then immediately right (an unofficial path goes straight on here). After going uphill for a few yards I cam to another path junction, where I turned left. I hadn't walked this section of path the before - it ran slightly downhill through the wood for a couple of hundred yards or so to reach the no-through lane from Buckmoorend towards Little Hampden (I usually refer this as the 'old' lane as if it's no longer in use, but it's just shown as a lane on the OS map, though you'd probably need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get along it and it just ends in the middle of a wood - I've always presumed it used to continue on to Little Hampden). I turned left and followed the Lane to Buckmoorend, where I was once again in familiar territory.
Where I turned right at a path junction, now in Hensgrove Wood
The path after I turned left in Hensgrove Wood
The lane between Little Hampden and Buckmoorend
Buckmoorend
At the end of the lane, I crossed a road and joined the route of the Ridgeway national trail as it crossed the grounds of Chequers (the Prime Minister's country retreat). It soon went through gates either side of the drive to the big house. There used to be a fence on the right beyond the second gate, but now there is just a row of warning notices. Through another gate, the path turns right to follow the edge of Maple Wood, with views to the right over Chequers (mainly hidden in trees) with Coombe Hill beyond.
The Ridgeway, crossing the grounds of Chequers
The Ridgeway, crossing the grounds of Chequers
The Ridgeway, crossing the grounds of Chequers
The Ridgeway running beside Maple Wood
View towards Chequers and Coombe Hill
The Ridgeway running beside Maple Wood
After a few hundred yards, the path went through a gate and continued across an empty pasture (this section is marked Cradle Footpath on the OS map, but I don't know the origin of this name). On the far side, I went through another gate and continued along the clear path through an area of grass and bushes. After two or three hundred yards I forked right where a wooden finger-post indicated a footpath junction (I could have gone on a little further and then turned right to go over the little eminence called Chequers Knap). There was a clear path heading towards a corner of this area of rough grass and bushes, but I followed a path going further left, going diagonally to another corner, soon with Chequers Knap up to my left. On reaching the far corner, I turned right onto a bridleway and followed it down to Great Kimble, where the layby where I'd started was just to my left.
The Cradle footpath (I'd love to know why it's called this)
View ahead from the Cradle footpath
Where I forked right from the Ridgeway
The path passing below Chequers Knapp
The path passing below Chequers Knapp
Further along the path
The bridleway back to Great Kimble
The bridleway back to Great Kimble
This seven-mile walk took me about three-hours, which was very slow. My excuse is that I've still not fully recovered from the mild bout of Covid-19 I had about four months ago, in fact I really felt quite unwell the following day. So I'll only be doing even shorter walks than this in the coming weeks. But I did enjoy the walk and it was nice to do a few more paths I'd not walked before. The quite long one through Kingsfield Wood is one I've wanted to walk for quite a while, but I think I'd only recommend it for a summer walk or after a long dry spell. It was far wetter than any of the other paths I walked today, and the conditions weren't at their worst as I've seen a nearby bridleway in far worse conditions than it was today.