Pete's Walks - Cowleaze Wood and Radnage (page 6 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.
On reaching a bend in one of the drives on the Wormsley Estate, I went straight on along the drive. After a quarter of a mile or so I passed a yellow cottage by Wellground Farm on my left. Almost immediately after this, I turned left onto a footpath that headed gradually up into Langleygreen Plantation- the OS map shows that this inexplicably changes from a footpath to a bridleway at some point. It was a very gentle uphill, though quite lengthy. After about half a mile, I turned left at a path crossroads (this path is quite narrow, I was almost misled by a broader path a few yards further on, despite having been here many times before). This path dropped downhill through the wood and then across an empty paddock, before going to the left of Lower Vicar's Farm to reach another of the Wormsley Estate drives.
The drive through the Wormsley Valley
The start of the path up through Langleygreen Plantation
Langleygreen Plantation
Langleygreen Plantation
Langleygreen Plantation
Langleygreen Plantation
The start of the path after I turned left in Langleygreen Plantation
The path after I turned left in Langleygreen Plantation
The path continuing past Lower Vicar's Farm
I went a little way left along the drive then turned right through a kissing-gate in the hedge (almost opposite a small sign on the left of the drive). I now had a long steady plod uphill to reach Cowleaze Wood, first through a large empty sheep pasture and then on through a field of Maize. This can be a little wearisome at the end of the walk, but there are splendid views here that give every justification for a 'photo stop'. At the top of the hill I entered Cowleaze Wood, following a clear path through it for about half a mile to reach the car park where I'd started.
The bridleway going left along the drive near Lower Vicar's Farm
The path going uphill to Cowleaze Wood
View back from the path going uphill to Cowleaze Wood
View back from the path going uphill to Cowleaze Wood
Cowleaze Wood
Cowleaze Wood
Cowleaze Wood
Cowleaze Wood, approaching the car park
This was yet another enjoyable walk, the third one in my Christmas and New Year break from that abomination called 'work'. I was very surprised to find that it had been eight years since I'd walked the route in this direction, I'm sure I won't wait that long before repeating it again in the anti-clockwise direction (which I've only done once, in April 2017. There were a lot of ups and downs on the route, interspersed with two or three quite lengthy flat sections, with the usual Chilterns mixture of woods and field paths. I've walked the last section from Ibstone to Cowleaze Wood many times before, but it's still a very pleasant way to finish off a walk, despite that last long uphill!