Pete's Walks - Maidensgrove Common and Rotherfield Peppard (page 2 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.
I crossed the road and went down a byway (doing a good impression of a lane) the other side. After a couple of hundred yards or so I took a footpath on the left, running just inside a wood called Hatch Copse, close to a pasture on my left. After a while the path crossed a track (there were gates either side) by a farm on the left, then dropped downhill through the wood. It then turned slightly left along a grassy ride along a valley bottom, now in Earl's Wood (I think). At a path junction after a few hundred yards I turned left along a track, the path going straight on through a grassy area when the track turned left, and then leaving the wood at a stile close to a small reservoir (to my right). The path then went left along the edge of a pasture. Across a stile in the corner, I went a few yards right and then entered a wood with the intriguing name of Famous Copse.
The byway at Bix
The start of the path through Hatch Copse
The path through Hatch Copse
The path through Hatch Copse
The path through Hatch Copse (I love beech woods!)
The broad path through Earl's Wood
The start of the path after I turned left in Earl's Wood
Reservoir on the edge of Earl's Wood
The path continuing from Earl's Wood
I immediately went straight on at a path junction in this corner of the wood, staying fairly close to the edge of the wood on my right but gradually moving away from it. On coming to a path T-junction, I went a few yards left then forked right, soon with an edge of the wood close by on my right (there was a waymark showing this to be a permissive path). When I came to a path crossroads I turned right, to leave the wood. I then took the rightmost of two paths across a meadow. After crossing a drive, the path continued through another meadow, and then across part of a larger field to reach a small wood. On the far side of this I turned right at another path T-junction, this path soon switching to the left of a fence, following it to the car park for Greys Court, a National Trust property.
The path in Famous Copse
The path in Famous Copse
The permissive path in Famous Copse
The path from Famous Copse (I took the right-hand path where it forks)
The path after I crossed a drive
The path continuing towards Greys Court
The path continuing towards Greys Court
The path to Greys Court, from where I turned right at a path T-junction
Approaching Greys Court