Pete's Walks- Cobblershill and Little Kingshill (page 1 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.

Google map of the walk

I did this circular walk of about 12.5  miles on Sunday, May 22nd, 2016. It was a repeat of a walk I did in July 2012, which was Walk 11 of my Chiltern Chain Walk done in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise).  In case you are wondering, no, I'm not intending to do the rest of that long distance path again, I just wanted to do a walk of about 12 miles and when I saw this route I realised I hadn't walked most of the paths on it since I did this walk.

I was very lucky. When I got to the Cobblershill car park (Grid Reference  SP 872042) it was still closed, as it had been when I last came here in September 2014 (so I presume the closure is permanent) but there was just room for me to park by the entrance (it was too narrow for me to turn my car here, so on my way home I had to follow the very narrow lane on through Cobblershill and down to Hampden Bottom, something I'd not recommend as there were very few passing places).

I started walking at about 11:05am, heading back down Cobblershill Lane towards the A413 main road. After about a quarter of a mile I turned left where footpaths went off on both sides of the lane, immediately crossing an all-weather gallop for horses and going through a gate on the left (another path went straight on).  I was now in a field with some bullocks and a small calf in it, and they all came running over to meet me. I'm always a bit wary of bullocks, and so kept close to the wooden fence on the left as I crossed the field to a kissing gate, the cattle following behind me. I then re-crossed the artificial gallop to another gate, where I entered a huge meadow and turned right. It was then quite a long stroll gently uphill beside the hedge on my right.

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Cobblershill Lane (heading away from the car park towards the main road)

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The path going uphill through the very large meadow (I was too distracted by the bullocks to take a photo in the previous field!)

When I eventually reached the corner of the meadow I had to go over a curious arrangement of two stiles to reach a bridleway along the edge of Hampdenleaf Wood (the bridleway runs from Cobblershill to Dunsmore, away to my right, and I have walked it several times). A few paces to the left a footpath started to descend through the wood, soon crossing another path, and continuing down to a valley bottom. Here I left the wood, the path continuing beside a hedgerow on my left to reach another wood, Little Hampden Common. As the path carried on through the wood I noticed several wildflowers including Herb Robert, Yellow Archangel and Woodruff - there were Bluebells too, but they were past their best. The path rose up through the wood, to emerge at the end of the lane through Little Hampden, opposite what was formerly the Rising Sun public house (it closed a few years ago).

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The path through Hampdenleaf Wood

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The path through Hampdenleaf Wood

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The path from Hampdenleaf Wood to Little Hampden Common

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The path through Little Hampden Common

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The path through Little Hampden Common

I turned left along the lane, following it for about a quarter of a mile until a track or drive went left. A short way down this, a footpath went left, initially following a track beside a field on my right. The path continued beside the field for a very long way, gradually descending towards the valley of Hampden Bottom, with very nice views over the valley ahead of me. On eventually reaching the next field corner, the path switched to the left of the hedgerow and continued downhill to reach the road that runs through the valley.

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The lane through Little Hampden

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The track in Little Hampden

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Near the start of the footpath going south from Little Hampden

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The footpath going south from Little Hampden

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Close-up shot from the footpath going south from Little Hampden

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The footpath going south from Little Hampden, approaching the road through Hampden Bottom

I turned left along the road, immediately passing a road going off on my right, until two lanes came in on the left, from Little Hampden and Cobblershill, with Little Hampden Forge immediately after them. Opposite the first lane, I turned right into a wood, taking the left fork when the path almost immediately divided in two (the two paths rejoined on the far side of the wood anyway so it didn't really matter). Beyond the wood, the path crossed The Glade, a mile-long grassy 'ride' between woods and trees either side, that heads in a straight line towards Hampden House a long way to my right.

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Little Hampden Forge

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The path through the wood after I turned right just before the Forge

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The path continuing across The Glade

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Looking right along The Glade (it heads towards Hampden House at Great Hampden)