Pete's Walks - Ashridge and Aldbury (page 2 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.
Stupidly I made a similar mistake here as I did in 2019 (I should have read what I wrote then, or looked at my OS map more carefully!). When I did this walk in the opposite direction, I'd taken a public footpath out of Aldbury, so I was now looking for a public footpath sign or waymark on the right. When I was almost in sight of where I knew a bridleway went right, I realised I'd probably gone too far. But there was a slight path forking right from the bridleway at this point so I tried it. As I suspected, it just joined the bridleway going right from the one I'd just been on (which I took in 2019). I turned right along the bridleway and soon left the woods, passing a paddock on the right and then following a straight drive to reach a street in Aldbury opposite a black-and-white timber-framed cottage. I turned left along the street, keeping to the left of the pond when I reached the village centre. I then went straight on at a slightly staggered crossroads.
This is where I forked right from the bridleway
View towards Clipper Down from the edge of Aldbury
The bridleway approaching Aldbury
The bridleway entering Aldbury
Aldbury
When I reached The Trooper pub (formerly The Valiant Trooper) the street turned left but I went straight on a few yards and took a footpath on the right. This path was soon crossing a field (I took the leftmost one of two paths here), on the far side of which it ran alongside a hedge on my left with a triangular area of rough grass to my right. The path then switched to the left of the hedgerow, and followed it as it turned left (Station Road was now on the other side of the hedge). In the next field corner I went through a hedge gap and went straight on at a path crossroads (Station Road went right at this point).
The Trooper (formerly The Valiant Trooper)
The path I took out of Aldbury (the one through the centre of the photo)
The path running parallel to Station road (over the hedge)
The path continuing straight on from the path junction where Station Road turns right
After a while the path turned left (actually, according the OS map the path ended and a byway started off to the left). I was soon following a line of trees on my right, with an area of reeds and rough grass on the other side - there used to be a pond here but it seems to have dried up. The path then followed a track across a large arable field, passing close to a barn to my right. This brought me to Newground Road, where I turned right. A byway almost immediately went left, but I stayed on the road for another two or three hundred yards until a second byway went left (the finger-post, on the left, isn't visible as you approach this way along the road, until you are level with it).
The same path after it turns left (actually it becomes a restricted byway where it turns left)
The byway continuing to Newground Road
Newground Road