Pete's Walks - Stoke Row, Nettlebed, Woodhouse Farm (page 5 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.
I then crossed the A4130 at Port Hill, and took a bridleway on the other side. This ran for a short way between garden boundaries, then crossed a tiny corner of a field. The path then followed a hedge on my left for some way, with a garden hedge, then a paddock and then a field on my right. On reaching a gap in the hedge on my left, the path went though it and crossed part of an arable field - the path was only just visible here, but I could see the waymark post it was heading too anyway. The path continued in more or less the same direction across the next field - there was no sign of the path here, except for another waymark post in the corner of the field that I headed for.
The path at Port Hill
The path at Port Hill
The path from Port Hill, cutting across a field corner
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill (the path was just visible in this field)
The path from Port Hill (the path wasn't visible in this field, but I could see where it went to)
I was now back at somewhere I'd walked before. I went a few yards left along a bridleway, and went over a stile that was to the right of a farm gate. I then followed a footpath through a large empty cattle pasture (the cattle can be avoided by following a footpath that runs along the far side of the hedge on the left of this pasture, then turning right at a path junction). Over a stile in the opposite corner of the pasture, I turned right along a farm track, which soon turned left with the buildings of English Farm now on my right. I then joined English Lane, turning right along it (and now starting the last new section of the route). I followed the mainly hedge-lined lane for about half a mile - part way along it I was delighted to spot some Lesser Celandine, which to me means Spring has sprung! I normally first see them around Huntingdon (where I work) in the last week of February, then see them in the Chilterns a week or two later, so this was a very pleasant surprise.
The path after I crossed the bridleway, heading towards English Farm
The path after I turned right towards English Farm (it curves left, passing this side of the barn at top left of this shot)
Where I joined English Lane at English Farm
English Lane
English Lane
My first Lesser Celandine of 2019
At the end of English Lane I crossed another lane and took a footpath that started between paddock fences, continued by a hedge on the right, then carried on across a field. It ended when it went through a hedge gap on the far side, where it came to a path junction. I turned right here onto a track, only to immediately leave the track and follow a path into a tree belt - this was like a long narrow beech wood. After about a quarter of a mile I came to a path junction where I turned left, and started to follow the Ridgeway national trail as it ran alongside an ancient earthwork named Grim's Ditch.
The start of the path after I crossed Timbers Lane
The path after I crossed Timbers Lane
The path after I turned right, heading to Grim's Ditch
The path after I turned right, heading to Grim's Ditch
The start of the section of the Ridgeway descending alongside Grim's Ditch