Pete's Walks - Ibstone, Skirmett and Wheeler End (page 2 of 7)
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.
I was now on one of my favourite paths in the Chilterns, which runs for about half a mile through Idlecombe Wood. It's not exactly flat but has very little up or down in its course, as it follows a hillside with an attractive valley glimpsed through the trees on the left (I always refer to the path as 'contouring' i.e. it follows roughly the same contour line on the OS map, about three-quarters of the way up the hillside). It's a delight to walk at any time of year, but at this time of the year I could see more of the valley to the left as most of the trees were bare of leaves. At one point I saw a group of Fallow Deer running through a field below the wood.
The path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
The path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
The path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
View from the path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
View from the path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
The path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
The path contouring through Idlecombe Wood
Eventually I came to a path junction where I turned right, and somewhere around here I moved from Idlecombe Wood into Churchfield Wood. There had been a mixture of trees up to now, but soon the wood became a typical Beech wood. After a few hundred yards the path turned left, and almost immediately a bridleway came in on the left - in fact the OS map shows that the path ends here and as I continued straight on I was now on the bridleway. A little further on, the bridleway left Churchfield Wood and ran between hedges a short way to reach the boundary around Turville Court, where I immediately turned left onto another bridleway.
The path through Churchfield Wood
The path through Churchfield Wood
The path through Churchfield Wood
The bridleway from Churchfield Wood to Turville Court
The start of the bridleway from Turville Court
It was nice and sunny now as I followed the bridleway beside a paddock fence on my left, with Churchfield Wood still on the other side of the paddock. Beyond the paddock the bridleway continued through a meadow, following a stout hedgerow on the right and with a fine view towards Fingest and the hills beyond gradually opening out ahead and slightly left of me. At the end of this meadow I went through a gate and continued straight on, the bridleway briefly touching the edge of Churchfield Wood on my left. I was now in a large empty pasture at the end of a ridge, the ground falling away quite steeply in front of me. The views here were excellent, with several valleys converging in front of me (almost directly ahead was the start of the Hambleden valley, which I'd be crossing at Skirmett a bit later on), and to my left I could see Cobstone Mill on top of a steep scrub-covered slope above Turville. It was very windy throughout this walk, and as I followed the bridleway steeply downhill a very strong gust suddenly hit me - it didn't exactly lift me off my feet, but it caused me to stumble and involuntarily take a step or two sideways. I've had that sort of thing happen to me in the Lake District, but never before in the Chilterns! At the bottom of the slope I went through a gate in a hedgerow and turned right along another bridleway that followed the hedge. It wasn't long though before I took a path that forked left across a field to reach Dolesden Lane. Across this, a path continued a short way through a wood and then entered a large meadow. Here I almost immediately reached a path junction (no sign or waymark, but the paths through the grass were obvious enough), where I went half-right and followed a path across a small part of the meadow to reach Poynatt's Wood.
The bridleway from Turville Court
View towards Fingest, from the bridleway from Turville Court
The bridleway from Turville Court, with a view ahead to the start of the Hambleden valley
The Bridleway after I turned right (you can see the path I took going half-left, starting where the two people are standing on the edge of the bridleway)
The path going half-left to Dolesden Lane
The wood across Dolesden Lane
The path through the meadow after I turned half-right