Pete's Walks - Bix Bottom and Rotherfield Peppard (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 continued straight on along the track through Bix Underwood for about half a mile, then the bridleway carried on beside a large meadow on my left - I think the wood to my right was now Halfridge Wood. Just after the meadow on my left came to an end, I turned right through a gate (if I'd gone straight on, I'd have reached the lane through Catslip after about a quarter of a mile). This path dropped quite steeply down through Halfridge Wood, turning right in the valley bottom. After a few hundred yards the path continued between a field and a fence, and as I walked along here I spotted a few Fallow Deer through the gate ahead of me.
The bridleway continuing through Bix Underwood
The bridleway continuing through Bix Underwood
The bridleway continuing from Bix Underwood
The bridleway continuing from Bix Underwood
The bridleway continuing from Bix Underwood, just before I turned right
The path after I turned right
The path dropping downhill through Halfridge Wood
The path through Halfridge Wood, after it turns right along the valley bottom
The path through Halfridge Wood, after it turns right along the valley bottom
The path continuing from Halfridge Wood
The deer had run off by the time I got to the gate, through which I continued along the left edge of a large field that is usually a pasture though there were no signs of cattle here today and several gates were open. About halfway through this field, the path switched to the other side of the field boundary on my left and continued along a track for several hundred yards to reach Valley End Farm and the lane through Bix Bottom. Here I turned left, and followed the lane for about a quarter of a mile to reach the old church and my parked car.
The path continuing from Halfridge Wood
The path continuing from Halfridge Wood
Valley End Farm, Bix Bottom
The lane through Bix Bottom, after I turned left
I thoroughly enjoyed this walk (despite the generally grey and initially rather cold conditions), I really should make the effort to plan a new route more often! The route worked out very well indeed, I enjoyed all the new paths, bridleways and byways that I walked, and in fact I'd be very happy to repeat the walk sometime without making any changes to the route. That's a little surprising, because this was really just an 'exploratory' walk where I just linked up a number of paths I'd not walked before, intending to use the ones that I found I enjoyed in future routes.