Pete's Walks - Christmas Common, Ibstone, Cookley Green (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.
Lunch over, I returned to the edge of the common and continued along it, following a clear path through the grass and soon crossing a drive leading to a farm over to my left. After another few hundred yards, the path went slightly right where more of the common opened out on my right. When the path came back to the edge of the common, I followed it for another hundred yards or so until a junction where the trees on my right turned right. Here I took a path through the grass that aimed just left of a house on the lane through Russell's Water and Maidensgrove. On reaching the lane, I turned right and soon passed The Five Horsehoes pub.
Maidensgrove Common
Maidensgrove Common
View over Maidensgrove Common
The path on Maidensgrove Common heading to the lane (this is taken from a path junction where another path goes further left)
The Five Horseshoes, Maidensgrove
One or two hundred yards past the pub, I turned left onto a footpath that started between fences and hedges. After some way it dropped down a few 'steps' and turned right between bushes, before turning left dropping steeply down a scrub-covered hillside, following a hedge on my right. I soon saw my first Marbled White butterflies of 2019 here.
Near the start of the path from Maidensgrove
The path from Maidensgrove
The path from Maidensgrove
The path from Maidensgrove, descending steeply (I'm never sure if this valley is Upper Bix Bottom, or if that's the next one - the two converge a little way left of here)
View left from the steep path down
One of my first Marbled White butterflies of 2019
In the valley bottom I turned right onto a bridleway, which ran between overgrown hedges either side. I followed the bridleway along the valley bottom, rising almost imperceptibly all the time as it headed to the start of the valley, for almost a mile, until it reached Cookley Green.
The bridleway going northwest along the valley bottom to Cookley Green
The bridleway going northwest along the valley bottom to Cookley Green
The bridleway going northwest along the valley bottom to Cookley Green
The bridleway going northwest along the valley bottom to Cookley Green
The bridleway going northwest along the valley bottom to Cookley Green
Approaching Cookley Green