Pete's Walks - Stoke Row, Satwell, Nettlebed (page 5 of 5)
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 then crossed the A4130 at Port Hill, and took a bridleway on the other side. This ran for a short way between garden boundaries, then crossed a tiny corner of a field. The path then followed a hedge on my left for some way, with a garden hedge (it was a bit of a squeeze here), then a paddock and then a field on my right. On reaching a gap in the hedge on my left, the path went through it and crossed part of an arable field - the path was only just visible here. The path continued in more or less the same direction across the next field - it was slightly easier to see here.
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
The path from Port Hill
I was now back at somewhere I was more familiar with. I went a few yards left along a bridleway, and went over a stile that was to the right of a farm gate. I then followed a path through a large pasture, aiming for a gate in the opposite corner. Over another stile, I turned right along a farm track, which soon turned left with the buildings of English Farm now on my right. The track turned right, and then I immediately went left to reach a byway named English Lane. On my walk in February 2019 I went right here, but for today's shortened route I went left. I followed English Lane gently downhill for about a third of a mile, then took a path by a gate on my right (I'd passed another gate on that side earlier). This path (which I'd not walked previously) went uphill beside a fence on my right.
The path after I crossed the bridleway, heading towards English Farm
The path after I turned right towards English Farm (it curves left, passing this side of the buildings)English Lane
English Lane
The path after I turned right from English Lane (a new path for me!)
View left from along that path
At the top of the hill I went over a stile and turned right along another byway. After one or two hundred yards I took a footpath on the left, which ran alongside a fence on my right. After a while the path dropped downhill, went over a stile and continued by a tall hedge on my left until it reached the valley bottom. Here I turned left along another byway, Cox's Lane, that ran between hedgerows, heading roughly southeast. After about half a mile I passed Stokerow Farm on the left, and the byway became a surfaced lane as it entered Stoke Row. A few hundred yards further on, I took a footpath on the right, which ran between a low hedge on my left and a tall hedge on my right. This brought me to the main road through Stoke Row, close to where I'd parked near the Maharajah's Well.
The byway, after I turned right
The path after I turned left from the byway
Cox's Lane
Cox's Lane
Cox's Lane, approaching Stoke Row
The path after I turned right from Cox's Lane
I'd wanted to repeat that walk I did in February 2019 for some time now, so I was glad to at least repeat a sizeable part of it today (and this was all the part that had been new to me then, so I was walking it for only the second time). The route was a little unusual in that the first two-thirds were almost all in woodland, which I really enjoyed (but others might get a bit bored with), and the last third almost all through fields - normally my routes mix the two up a lot more than that. It was a fairly flat route, with only a couple of fairly gentle uphill sections.
Unfortunately, I'm not very fit at the moment and my knees are not in a great state, so I didn't enjoy the walk as much as I should have done. My legs didn't seem as strong as they usually are, and I was plodding rather than walking long before I got as far as Nettlebed. Consequently the 9.6 miles took me almost four and a half hours, at only a little over 2mph.