Pete's Walks - Maidensgrove and Rotherfield Peppard (page 3 of 5)
I turned right along the road at Greys Green, going straight on at a junction where another road came in from the right, and then turning left onto a bridleway after another 100 yards or so. The bridleway ran between hedges, going southwest-wards. From my two walks on the Chiltern Way I seemed to remember there being a golf course somewhere beyond the hedge on the right, but there was no sign of it today (maybe the hedges have grown taller in the last five years!). I saw my only Speckled Wood butterfly of the day somewhere along here. After about three-quarters of a mile I crossed a track called Dog Lane, and at this point the bridleway became a public byway.
Start of the bridleway going southeast from Greys Green
The bridleway going southeast from Greys Green
The bridleway going southeast from Greys Green
The bridleway going southeast from Greys Green
There was now a wood called The Paddock on my right. Oddly enough, when it finished it was replaced by proper paddocks, complete with some distant horses. The byway continued on to King's Farm where it became a tarmac surfaced lane.
The public byway going southeast beside The Paddock
The public byway going southeast beside The Paddock
The public bridleway now passing the paddocks just before King's Farm
The public byway, near King's Farm
A little beyond King's Farm, I turned right onto a footpath (leaving the route of the Chiltern Way). Again I was on a path I'd not walked before, this one heading west, initially between very tall hedges that were close together. Further on there were paddocks to my right again, full of dandelions and other flowers, with a pleasant view over the valley ahead of me. The path then dropped quite steeply into the valley, now with a wood on my right. At the valley bottom I came to a path junction where I turned right. This path ran through a wood, possibly Flowercroft Wood, curving slowly from north to west. There were one or two Cuckooflowers growing here, the first I'd seen this year, and plenty of Bluebells and other wildflowers, making this a very colourful and pleasant woodland section.
The footpath going west from King's Farm
The footpath going west from King's Farm
The path going northwest towards Bottom Barn
The path going northwest towards Bottom Barn
Beyond the wood I went a few yards right, then through a kissing gate and turned left beside a hedgerow with a yellow field of oil-seed rape on my right (the OS map shows this bridleway in the field over the hedge on my left, but I'm fairly sure I went the right way and I did meet a horse rider coming the other way). Beyond a barn, presumably the Bottom Barn shown on the OS map, I was definitely back on a public footpath, which continued along the edge of the rape field, turning right in the corner beside a wood. Where the wood ended, the path switched to the left of a hedgerow, and followed the edge of another oil-seed rape field, turning left in a corner. At the next field corner I went a few yards right to the end of a street in Rotherfield Peppard.
The bridleway to Bottom Barn (the OS map shows it on the other side of the hedge)
The path continuing westwards from Bottom Barn
The path continuing towards Rotherfield Peppard