Pete's Walks - Coombe Hill and Prestwood (page 1 of 4)
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 did this circular walk of about 10.5 miles on Thursday, 11th January 2024. It was more or less a repeat of a walk I did in August 2017, but using the 'Alternative 1' shown on my map to avoid some unnecessary road walking (I only followed the road in 2017 because I was looking for a certain wildflower). I'd followed a similar route about 10 years earlier, and there were a few paths today that I'd only walked previously on those two walks. 'Coombe Hill and Prestwood' is a bit of a misnomer for this route, as I never visited the top of Coombe Hill and didn't actually enter Prestwood, the nearest I got to it was the adjoining Lodge Wood.
I parked at the Coombe Hill car park (Grid Reference SP 852063), and started walking at about 9:45am. The temperature was only 1.5°C, and there was a heavy frost on the ground (and a smattering of snow). At the entrance to the car park, facing the road, I turned left along a path into the woods that I'd only walked a few times before. On coming to a path junction (with waymarks on a post) I turned right, and continued through Low Scrubs (the name of this part of the wood) for a few hundred yards, briefly going through a more open area before re-entering the trees. I then turned left onto another path through the wood (there was no sign or waymark here, but the path was reasonably obvious) and followed it until it ended at a bridleway running alongside an iron fence. I turned right and followed the bridleway for about half a mile to reach the hamlet of Dunsmore.
The start of the path from the Coombe Hill car park, entering Low Scrubs
The path through Low Scrubs, after I turned right
Further along the path through Low Scrubs
The path through Low Scrubs, after I turned left
The bridleway to Dunsmore
The bridleway to Dunsmore
The bridleway to Dunsmore
I turned right at the lane junction in the centre of Dunsmore by the chapel and duck pond. After a hundred yards or so I turned left over a stile, and took the leftmost of two paths through a grassy pasture that sloped down to my right. On the other side of this pasture I went over another stile and crossed another pasture, dropping downhill to a third stile. Over this, the path continued through a small enclosure. Beyond this, in the valley bottom, I turned left along a bridleway coming from Old Dunsmore Farm. I soon came to a crossing bridleway (going right would have taken me to Little Hampden), where I continued ahead on what was now a footpath, running through Hampdenleaf Wood (I'd only used this path two or three times before).
The lane through Dunsmore
The pond at Dunsmore
The path after going over a stile at Dunsmore - I took the left fork
The path from Dunsmore dropping into a valley near Old Dunsmore Farm
The footpath through Hampdenleaf Wood
After a few hundred yards the path merged with a broader path or track coming in from the right, and continued on close to the edge of the wood on my right. When I then reached a path junction in a corner of the wood, I turned left (back on a more familiar path) and followed the path uphill through more of the wood. On reaching a path crossroads not far below the top of the slope, I turned right and continued through still more of Hampdenleaf Wood (I'd only walked this path twice before). I followed this almost level path for about three-quarters of a mile, going straight on at a couple of path crossroads (somewhere after the second junction the wood became Ball's Wood). Eventually the path ended when it reached Cobblershill Lane.
The footpath through Hampdenleaf Wood
The footpath through Hampdenleaf Wood after I turned left
Further along the same path
The footpath through Hampdenleaf Wood after I turned right at a path crossroads
The footpath continuing through Hampdenleaf Wood
The footpath continuing through Hampdenleaf Wood
The footpath continuing through Hampdenleaf Wood
The footpath continuing through Ball's Wood