Pete's Walks- Southeast from Watlington Hill (page 4 of 4)
Opposite a farm that sells Christmas trees, I went through a gate in a brick wall on the right of the road, to enter Greenfield Copse. The path led through what were mainly beech trees and fairly soon started to descend another hill. The path ended at a junction with a bridleway on the edge of the wood, where I turned right. I soon went through a gate, where the bridleway went left but I went straight on through a second gate. I was now on a footpath running through a thin belt of trees. After a few hundred yards the path went left, and followed a hedgerow to reach the Watlington to Nettlebed road (opposite a property named Dumble Dore).
The path through Greenfield Copse
The path through Greenfield Copse
The path through Greenfield Copse
The bridleway going north (right) along the edge of Greenfield Copse
The path through the tree belt
The path through the tree belt
The path through the tree belt
The path continuing to the Watlington-Nettlebed road
I turned right and followed the road towards Watlington, stepping onto the verge occasionally as traffic went by. After a few hundred yards a footpath went right, along a drive. Another path soon forked left, soon running between hedgerows either side. It then started a long gradual climb up Watlington Hill. After a while there was a nice view looking back. There was then a section through some Yew trees (this was shorter than I remembered), before the path reached some Beech trees and then passed the Watlington Hill car park. At the end of the path, I turned right and followed the road about a quarter of a mile to a T-junction on the edge of Christmas Common, where I turned right. I soon came to a second junction, where I forked left to where my car was parked.
The Watlington-Nettlebed road
The path to Watlington Hill
The path continuing up Watlington Hill
The path up Watlington Hill
View looking back from the path up Watlington Hill
The path up Watlington Hill
The path up Watlington Hill, almost at the car park
The road from Watlington Hill to Christmas Common
After first walking this route in 2013 I said "The walk took me about three and three quarter hours, possibly a little slow for 10.5 miles" - today it took me four hours and forty minutes, which shows how overweight and unfit I am! But I really enjoyed the walk - once again I had excellent weather for walking, so far the Spring weather has been amazingly good! I still think this is one of the better routes I walk, so I'm a little surprised that this was only the third time I'd walked it (the other time was in 2021). There were a lot of nice woodland paths, and when not in the woods there were usually some nice views to be had. It was also a very up and down route, which I think kept it interesting - apart from the two short road sections, the only lengthy flat section was the bridleway in College Wood (although that is actually slightly uphill, a bit more so than I'd remembered).