Pete's Walks - Ibstone, Skirmett and Wheeler End (page 7 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 crossed the road and went down Chequers Lane on the other side. I soon took a path starting over a stile on the right, crossing a small arable field and then making my way across a larger arable field, staying parallel to the hedge on my right and aiming for a projecting hedge corner ahead of me. On reaching the hedge corner I went through a gap and continued with the hedge on my left. In the next field corner I turned right, and soon found a waymark where the path then turned left into a wood. The path dropped quite steeply downhill through the wood into a valley named Twigside Bottom. On reaching the grassy valley floor, I turned left along a muddy track (another path went slightly more sharply left) but only for a hundred yards or so before a white arrow indicated where the footpath went right, to start the long climb up to Ibstone.
The start of the path from Chequers Lane to Twigside Bottom
The path from Chequers Lane to Twigside Bottom
The path from Chequers Lane to Twigside Bottom
The path descending into Twigside Bottom
The path descending into Twigside Bottom
The path descending into Twigside Bottom
Twigside Bottom (I turned left along the track for about a hundred yards, until the footpath went right)
The path now followed a broad grassy strip through the wood. As I followed it I noticed some movement through the trees on my right, and as I watched two Roe Deer ran out of that part of the wood, crossed the grass strip in front of me and disappeared through the trees to my left (as they crossed the grass strip, a Red Kite was flying just below tree-top height above them!). I was elated at seeing three types of deer on the same walk for only the second time, this really made my day!
On leaving the wood, the path continued more steeply uphill beside an overgrown hedgerow on my right. As I approached some conifers, I stopped to admire the view along the valley of Twigside Bottom towards Fingest. At the conifers the path entered a 'green tunnel' with trees or hedges overhanging, still going uphill but much less steeply now. It was about a third of a mile before it reached the road through Ibstone, where I turned right and followed the road back to my parked car, soon passing Ibstone Common on my left.
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
View back over Twigside Wood (Fingest Wood is on the skyline in the centre)
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
The path from Twigside Bottom up to Ibstone
Approaching Ibstone
The road through Ibstone, after I turned right
The road through Ibstone, passing Ibstone Common
This was another very good walk - in fact I'm going to 'promote' it and give it a '*' in my ratings system. I was surprised that I'd only walked this route once in each direction, and also that it was over seven years since I walked it this way round (anti-clockwise) - I'm sure I won't leave it that long before walking it again! The path through Idlecombe Wood has long been one of my favourites, but there were many other good sections on this route, including the long woodland section through Poynatt's Wood and Great wood, (which I'd only walked a few times before), and the path into Little Frieth which had some nice views all along it.