Pete's Walks - Southeast from Cadmore End (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.
I followed the broad path along the valley bottom, with wooded slopes rising on both sides. I went straight on where another path crossed the valley, a little further on the path turned right and I passed the junction where the Chiltern Way goes sharply left. Now in Heath Wood, the broad grassy strip soon came to an end, and the footpath continued along a narrow path through the trees, still following the valley bottom and soon with a tall wire fence on my right. On reaching a path junction I turned left (just before the path along the valley went over a stile) and headed uphill. Here I was just inside a mature part of the wood, with a young plantation to my right - when I did this walk in 2011 there was a nice view along the valley here, but the trees in the plantation have now grown tall enough to obscure it. At the top of the slope I came to a path crossroads (the path continuing ahead almost immediately forked) where I turned right along quite a wide path. This soon crossed a track, and a little further on ran through an area of conifers where I had my second sighting of Fallow Deer, maybe five or six this time. Beyond the conifers, as the path curved left near a property on the edge of the wood, I was startled by a Muntjac jumping across the path just a few yards in front of me and scampering off through the trees. The path finally left the wood at a stile, crossing a paddock where I had to go sharp left to the end of a fence then turn alongside it to a stile and a lane junction.
The start of the section along the valley bottom in Homefield Wood and Heath Wood
The path through Heath Wood (just before the Chiltern Way goes sharp left
The path through Heath Wood
The path through Heath Wood
The path through Heath Wood, after I turned left
The path through Heath Wood, after I turned right
The path through Heath Wood, after I turned right
The path through Heath Wood, after I turned right
The paddock after the path leaves Heath Wood
I took the lane continuing almost in the same direction I'd been going, which was going to Rockwell End and Frieth (rather than the one going left or right). There were a few Red Kites in a tree here by the junction, and further down the lane there was a flock of Starlings in a tree overhanging the lane. I wasn't especially looking forward to this lane walk, although it wasn't really much more than a mile and a quarter. It went through Rockwell End, then Pheasants, then the even tinier hamlet of Parmoor, and passed St Katherine's (a Retreat House and Conference Centre), and actually it passed quite quickly and painlessly. Just past St Katherine's a path started along the wide grass verge on the right. The path went straight on past some farm buildings on the right, then just past a stile on my left I came to a seat (which I didn't remember) where I stopped to eat a very late lunch (it was now about 2.20am). Lunch over, I followed the path between fences a short distance into Frieth, managing to get a photo of another Red Kite in a tree here.
The lane to Rockwell End
The lane continuing through Rockwell End
The lane continuing from Rockwell End to Pheasants
The lane continuing through Pheasants
The lane continuing from Pheasants to Parmoor
The lane continuing past St Katherine's, Parmoor
The path alongside the lane, heading to Frieth
The path into Frieth