Pete's Walks - Ibstone, Skirmett and Wheeler End (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.
On reaching a field corner, I went through a gate into the wood (now Fining Wood). A few yards down a track, the path forked slightly left from the track. I soon reached a bit of a clearing where I joined a bridleway (I didn't actually see any signs), going slightly left. This was one of the few really muddy bits of the walk. The bridleway soon left the wood, went through a couple of gates in quick succession, and then soon turned right to reach a road in Bolter End.
The path through Fining Wood
The bridleway through Fining Wood
The bridleway continuing from Fining Wood
The bridleway approaching the road at Bolter End
The road at Bolter End (I turned right at the finger-post)
I went a short way left along the road, then turned right where a finger-post indicated a footpath starting down a driveway. The path continued between garden hedges for a while, then ran for several hundred yards with paddocks beyond the fence on my right. Eventually the path turned right, now with the noisy M40 motorway to my left. After a fairly short while the path followed a flight of steps up an embankment to reach a road, where I turned left and crossed a bridge over the M40 to reach Wheeler End. I followed the road through the village for three or four hundred yards, then turned left along a track next to Wheeler End Common. Almost straight away I took a path forking slightly right from the track, soon passing a seat on my right. The track almost converged with the track near some cottages on the left, but drifted slightly right, only to join the track after another hundred yards or so, shortly before it reached a minor road.
Near the start of the path from Bolter End
The path from Bolter End
The path from Bolter End, running next to the M40
Wheeler End
Wheeler End Common
Wheeler End Common
I crossed directly over the road and took a path through Cadmore end Common (a footpath started a few yards to the left along the road, I think I went that way when I did this walk in 2011, but then immediatelty forked right to join the path I took today). After I while I reached an area of dead bracken where a path went right and I could see the lane I eventually wanted to reach just a short distance along it. But I went straight on, the path moving slightly left, soon passing a pond on my left and then coming to a junction where I went right. I kept on along the path and eventually reached a small area of grass with the lane just a few yards to my right. But I kept left here, soon entering some trees where the path continued close to a field on my left for some time. I just kept straight on along this path until it finally met the lane.
The path through Cadmore End Common
The path through Cadmore End Common
The path through Cadmore End Common (I could have joined the lane I wanted much sooner by turning right here)
The path through Cadmore End Common, passing a pond
The path through Cadmore End Common, after I went right at a junction
The path through Cadmore End Common (the lane is juts to the right here, but kept left and entered the trees where the grass strip appears to end)
The path through Cadmore End Common
Approaching the end of the path through Cadmore End Common, as it nears the lane coming in sharply from the right.