Pete's Walks - Hambleden, Marlow Common, Moorend Common (page 4 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.
The path continued beside a wall, then I turned left and followed path through the woods in that direction for about half a mile (crossing a drive at one point). This bridleway was very muddy everywhere. Just after going over a plank bridge over a tiny stream, the path turned right and reached the open part of Moorend Common. It was dreadfully muddy here, where I initially had to keep left rather than enter the grassy area ahead of me. When I did reach the grassy area it was still rather squelchy underfoot. Again my timing was wrong, as the orchids I'd hoped to see were only just starting to flower, so I didn't spend any time looking around them. The path joined a drive by some cottages, and continued on to reach a road.
The path through the wooded part of Moorend Common, after I turned left
The path through the wooded part of Moorend Common
The path through the wooded part of Moorend Common
The open part of Moorend Common
A very pale Common Spotted Orchid
On the other side of the road I took a path that started immediately left of a track. It ran for a hundred yards or so through Moorend Wood and ended when it reached the same track (that had turned left). Two paths started on the other side of the track - the one on the right went through a kissing-gate into a field, but I took the leftmost path that continued just inside the edge of the wood, next to the field [NOTE: previously the path from the road has joined the track at an earlier point, and I've gone a short distance left along the track before taking the second path on the right]. This path soon came to another kissing-gate in a corner of the wood, where I went straight on across a mown meadow. On reaching a hedge corner I carried on beside a hedge on my right, still in the same large meadow.
The path in Moorend Wood
The path after crossing the track in Moorend Wood
The path continuing from Moorend Wood
The path brought me to some farm buildings (Frieth was now a short distance to my right), where I turned left at a path junction. The path was soon running along a grassy strip with some mature trees next to a lane on my right. Just before the grassy strip ended I switched to the lane, soon passing St Katherine's Convent on my right. I passed one or two properties in Parmoor and then, after two or three hundred yards, turned right along a path that went a couple of yards down a gravel driveway then ran to the right of the driveway. After passing a garden, the path went half-left across a meadow full of wildflowers to reach a lane at Pheasants.
The path beside the lane to Parmoor
The lane passing St Katherine's, Parmoor
The path at Pheasants (I've never seen this meadow so full of wildflowers before)