Pete's Walks - Christmas Common, Ibstone, Cookley Green (page 4 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.
Across Hollandridge Lane a path continued across a meadow, gradually moving slightly further away from the tall hedge on the left. On entering College Wood, I went straight on at a junction after a few yards (the Oxfordshire Way goes left here), the path gradually dropping down hill. At a valley bottom, a bridleway continued a few yards to the left of a more obvious track straight ahead. The path gradually rose again through the trees, curving slightly left then right and then turning left and dropping down into a second valley.
The path continuing from Hollandridge Lane to College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
The path continuing through College Wood
I went straight on where another bridleway went right in the valley bottom, but the bridleway I was following almost immediately then turned half-right as it climbed the opposite slope, now in Greenfield Wood. The path then dropped slightly into another valley, entering Shambridge Wood at about this point. The path rose again easily up the other side of this small valley, more a dip really. After levelling off, and shortly after passing a corner of a tall wire fence on the left, I turned left onto a permissive path (the Chiltern Way went straight on). This path soon met the fence I'd just seen and followed it downhill to reach a road at Pishill Bottom. Across the road, a path started along a drive and entered another wood, soon running in a worn groove in the ground. The path emerged in the northermost corner of Russell's Water Common, where I continued along the edge of the grassy common with trees on my right. On reaching a waymark post, I took a short detour by following a track on the right into the hamlet of Russell's Water Common, so that I could sit on a bench by the pond to eat my packed lunch.
The path continuing through Greenfield Wood
The path continuing through Greenfield Wood
The path continuing through Shambridge Wood
The path continuing through Shambridge Wood
The path continuing through Shambridge Wood
The permissive path in Shambridge Wood, leading down to Pishill Bottom
The path from Pishill Bottom to Russell's Water Common
Russell's Water Common