Pete's Walks - Cowleaze Wood, Crowell, Stokenchurch (page 4 of 6)
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 entering Crowell Wood, I turned left along a bridleway (again I was back on familiar territory), almost immediately coming to a bridleway junction where I kept left, following the bridleway gently uphill along a groove (possibly another 'hollow way') - there was an unofficial path just a few yards to the left, presumably used when this bridleway gets too muddy (as I know it can do). The bridleway soon brought me back to the lane I'd briefly touched on before, by Crowellhill Farm, where I turned right and followed the lane through Sprig's Alley. After three or four hundred yards a path went left, and from this point I started another lengthy section of the route that was new to me. I passed a sign saying the lane was now called Sprigs Holly Lane, and after another three or four hundred yards I took a footpath on the right.
The bridleway after I turned left inside Crowell Wood, heading up to Crowellhill Farm
The lane through Sprig's Alley
The lane through Sprig's Alley
The path started rather inauspiciously along a concrete drive to some farm or industrial buildings. It kept to the right of them, continuing between fences with small meadows either side. But the fences ended when they reached a crossing hedgerow, where I suddenly came across a really nice view looking left along a valley - this side of the valley was a large meadow, with some scrub further along, with a wood (Crowell Wood again) sloping up the far side of the valley. The path now went slightly right as it dropped downhill through the meadow to reach the valley bottom and the wood.
The start of the path from Sprigs Holly Lane to Crowell Wood
The path from Sprigs Holly Lane to Crowell Wood
View left from the path from Sprigs Holly Lane to Crowell Wood
Descending to Crowell Wood
On entering Crowell Wood and crossing a bridleway, the path turned slightly left as it gently climbed up the other side of the valley (last time I was nearly misled by a track going slightly right from where I entered the wood). The path soon levelled out as it crossed the top of a wooded ridge, and then started descending quite steeply into the next valley. In the bottom of the valley, I crossed another bridleway and left Crowell Wood, the path going over a stile and heading half-left across a corner of a sheep pasture.
Crowell Wood
Crowell Wood
The path now descending through Crowell Wood
Near the end of the path through Crowell Wood
The path to Hallbottom Farm from Crowell Wood
Over another stile in the hedge on that side of the pasture (there was a nice view along the valley to my left here), the path continued downhill across another pasture aiming for a corner of this field by Hallbottom Farm. From that corner the path rose uphill between a wooden fence and the wire fence of another sheep pasture. Through a gate, the path turned half right, continuing a short way uphill to reach the drive coming up from Hallbottom Farm, where I turned left. I was very briefly back on known territory, before turning left again, along a path following another surfaced drive. I followed this for maybe a quarter of a mile, then immediately after passing a bungalow on the left and going through a kissing-gate next to a gate across the drive, I turned very sharply right, joining the route of the Chiltern Way which I would now be following for about a mile. The path crossed part of a corn field, then continued in roughly the same direction across a rough meadow. This brought me back to the drive from Hallbottom Farm, where I turned left and entered Stokenchurch. I turned right at a T-Junction (where the Royal Oak was on my right), following this street as it curved left towards the A40, the main road through the village.
View left along Colliers Lane towards Radnage, from the path to Hallbottom Farm
The path continuing from Hallbottom Farm
The path continuing from Hallbottom Farm
The drive from Hallbottom Farm
View after I tuned left from the drive from Hallbottom Farm
The path after I turned left from the drive from Hallbottom Farm
The Chiltern Way heading towards Stokenchurch
The Chiltern Way heading towards Stokenchurch