Pete's Walks - Great Kimble, Green Hailey, Buckmoorend (page 2 of 3)
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.
Just before reaching the garden of a property in the hamlet of Green Hailey, I took a path going left (I didn't notice it today but there used to be a fingerpost nearby). After a short distance I came to a crossing track, where the footpath went a couple of yards right along the track and then turned left. This path had been very muddy the two times I'd walked it previously (following this same route), today it was a bit damp in places but not too bad at all (the other two times had been in late Spring when paths are usually muddier). After a while the path curved right, and then curved left around the end of a small valley. The path then came to a track, coming in from the right, where I went a few yards to the left and then turned right onto a crossing bridleway (the track carries on but is no longer a right of way - this junction didn't seem to be signposted, but the bridleway coming in from the left is quite clear, it is just a few yards after the path joins the track).
The start of the footpath from Green Hailey, through Kingsfield Wood
The footpath from Green Hailey, through Kingsfield Wood
The footpath from Green Hailey, through Kingsfield Wood
The footpath from Green Hailey, through Kingsfield Wood
The footpath from Green Hailey, through Kingsfield Wood
The footpath from Green Hailey, (where it joins a track immediately before I turned right onto a bridleway that crosses the track)
The bridleway headed eastward through Knighton's Hill Wood. After a few hundred yards I reached a path junction where I turned left onto a footpath (there was a redundant stile with waymarks here). This soon had a field close by on my right. The path then turned left and dropped downhill through the wood, before levelling out and then rising slightly to reach a path junction by a bend in the drive to Solinger House.
The bridleway through Kingsfield Wood after I turned righ
The bridleway through Kingsfield Wood
The bridleway through Kingsfield Wood
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood after I turned left
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood
The bridleway through Knighton's Hill Wood
I turned right and followed the drive away from Solinger House - I saw some Common Toadflax and Nipplewort here. After about half a mile it ended at a road, where I crossed over and continued down a drive towards two properties (the OS map says Dirtywood Farm, the sign at the start of the drive says Hampden Chase). I then took the permissive path following a garden hedge round to the left of the properties, before the footpath continued by a hedge on my right to reach Widnell Wood. On entering the wood, I ignored an unofficial path almost immediately going right, but then a little way into the wood took a path that forked right from a track (a yellow arrow on a tree showed the way) and headed fairly gently uphill through the wood. I soon reached the next path junction, where I turned sharply left. This path ran fairly level through the wood, and then very gradually lost height.
The drive from Solinger House
Reaching the end of the drive from Solinger House
The drive to Dirtywood Farm (and Hampden Chase)
The path continuing towards Widnell Wood
The path after I forked right in Widnell Wood
The path in Widnell Wood, after I turned sharp left
Further along the same path
Approaching the T-junction at the end of the path
