Pete's Walks- Redland End and Coombe Hill (page 3 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.
After a couple of hundred yards or so I turned left, still on the Ridgeway which now entered another wood, with fields close by on my right. After going through a metal kissing-gate, I went a few yards left (going right would have taken me to the Coombe Hill car park) then turned right. I now had a lengthy stretch along the top of the western flank of Coombe Hill - there would normally be great views along here out over the Vale of Aylesbury but today they were lost in the mist and low cloud.
The Ridgeway, after turning left from the road on Lodge Hill
Misty view towards Beacon hill, from the path along the top of the western flank of Coombe Hill
The path along the top of the western flank of Coombe Hill
The path along the top of the western flank of Coombe Hill
The monument on Coombe Hill (a memorial to the men of Buckinghamshire who died in the Boer War)
I stopped to eat my lunch on a bench near the Boer War monument on Coombe Hill (it was now 1pm), then continued on along the Ridgeway, which turned right at the monument. After a few hundred yards it went through gates either side of a bridleway in a sunken lane, then continued for some way with small bushes or trees either side. I finally left the Ridgeway by going straight on where it forked slightly left, my path continuing over the grassy Bacombe Hill. After a while the path descended slightly as it passed more bushes on my right, then I reached a rather inconspicuous tumulus or ancient burial mound.
The Ridgeway continuing east from Coombe Hill
The Ridgeway continuing east from Coombe Hill
Path on Bacombe Hill, after I forked slightly right from the Ridgeway
The path on Bacombe Hill
Approaching the tumulus on Bacombe Hill
Misty view from the tumulus on Bacombe Hill
A path went right from the tumulus, dropping downhill through bushes to reach a bridleway. Over a stile on the other side, the path went half-left, dropping downhill through a very large paddock to reach another stile and Bacombe Lane. I turned left and followed the lane through Bacombe until a fingerpost indicated where a bridleway went right. After starting between garden boundaries, the bridleway continued between paddocks to reach a gate.
The path down to Bacombe
Bacombe Lane
The start of the bridleway from Bacombe
The bridleway from Bacombe (it turns right where it meets the crossing hedgerow)