Pete's Walks- Variation on 'Four Hills' walk from Whiteleaf Hill (page 4 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.
Near the top of the slope the path ended where it met a bridleway coming in sharply from my left. I continued along it, more or less straight on, through the wood, beyond which it carried on between paddock fences to reach a junction with another bridleway. Here I turned left and soon entered the hamlet of Dunsmore.
Coxgrove Wood, just after I joined a bridleway
The bridleway now approaching Dunsmore
Approaching Dunsmore
The chapel in Dunsmore
The pond in Dunsmore
I turned right at the crossroads (actually I first stopped for lunch on a seat by the duck pond) and then after a hundred yards or so took the leftmost of two paths that started on the left, each of which crossed some paddocks as they descended into a valley near Dunsmore Old Farm. At the end of the path I took I turned left along the valley, soon reaching a crossing bridleway where I turned right. This bridleway went gradually uphill through woods for about half a mile to reach the end of the lane in Little Hampden (opposite what used to be the Rising Sun pub).
The path from Dunsmore to near Old Dunsmore Farm
The bridleway to Little Hampden
The bridleway to Little Hampden
The bridleway to Little Hampden
I turned left along the lane for a few yards, then turned right along a public footpath that started along a driveway. The path then ran a short way between fences and hedges, before bearing slightly left across a large arable field to reach Warren Wood. I kept on through the wood in more or less the same direction (another path went left a few yards into the wood). On leaving Warren Wood, the path turned right, and followed a hedge on my right downhill into a valley named Hampden Bottom.
The footpath from Little Hampden to Warren Wood
The footpath from Little Hampden to Warren Wood
Warren Wood
Warren Wood
The path continuing from Warren Wood across the valley of Hampden Bottom (it crosses a minor road where the first crossing hedgerows are, switches to the right of the hedge, crosses another road and goes half-left through the green fields to reach the start of the drive to Hampden House, which runs more or less along the skyline)
Part of Hampden Bottom