Pete's Walks- Cowleaze Wood and Radnage (page 5 of 6)
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.
Once a path had come in on the left at the start of Lott Wood I had been back on more familiar territory, but that was only for about the next half a mile of following the track between the two woods. When I reached a rather odd junction, where I stayed on the bridleway as it turned left while footpaths went straight on and right, I was again on a section that I'd only ever walked in the opposite direction before. Soon the bridleway was running just inside the edge of what was now Kingston Wood, with fields just to my left. After a third of a mile or so, the bridleway turned sharply left and then after maybe another quarter of a mile it passed a cottage and then followed its drive to a corner of a lane. Here I went straight on and followed the lane a short way to where it met the A40.
The bridleway, approaching the junction where it forks left
The bridleway continuing just inside Kingston Wood
The bridleway continuing just inside Kingston Wood
The bridleway continuing just inside Kingston Wood (this was taken from where it turns left)
The bridleway continuing just inside Kingston Wood
The minor road on Kingston Hill
I turned right and followed the main road for about a quarter of a mile (there was a pavement all this way) and then where the road turned left I went straight on along a bridleway, which also soon turned left as it started to descend through Aston Wood. This was obviously a very old and well-used route, as there was an embankment either side where the bridleway had been worn into the wooded hillside. After several hundred yards the bridleway turned right onto a narrower path, briefly steepening, then levelling out. Eventually the bridleway left the woods, and followed a broad strip of grass between hedgerows to reach part of the Ridgeway National Trail.
The A40
Start of the bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway down Aston Hill
The bridleway approaching the Ridgeway