Pete's Walks- Christmas Common, Russell's Water, Nuffield (page 6 of 7)
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.
The path ran for two or three hundred yards through the wood, then joined the Swyncombe House drive I'd crossed earlier, where I turned left. When the drive came to a gate and a Lodge house, I went through the gate and turned left to follow a bridleway along a track on the edge of Haycroft Wood. I followed the pleasant and flat track for just over half a mile, the wood on my left becoming Church Wood at some point. At its end, I turned right and followed a lane into the hamlet of Cookley Green.
The path after I turned sharply right in Haycroft Wood, approaching the drive from Swyncombe House
The drive from Swyncombe House
The bridleway along the eastern edge of Haycroft Wood
The bridleway along the eastern edge of Haycroft Wood
The bridleway now along the eastern edge of Haycroft Wood
Approaching the end of the bridleway
The lane into Cookley Green
As soon as I entered Cookley Green I turned left along Coates Lane. This soon left the hamlet, passed through another wood and then soon reached Coates Farm. The lane continued, now better surfaced, for a few hundred yards to reach another lane.
Coates Lane
Coates Lane
Coates Lane, approaching Coates Lane
Coates Lane
I crossed the lane and continued along a bridleway that started down the drive to Woods Farm. After a 100 yards or so, the bridleway left the drive on the right, and started a long steady descent through a wood, heading towards Dame Alice Farm. At one point a tree branch formed an arch over the bridleway (I always take a photo of this!)
The drive to Woods Farm
The bridleway to Dame Alice Farm
The bridleway to Dame Alice Farm
The bridleway to Dame Alice Farm
The bridleway to Dame Alice Farm