Pete's Walks - Ashridge, Frithsden, Ward's Hurst Farm (page 4 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.
I stopped on a seat to have my sandwiches (it was about 12.25pm). I then continued towards the monument and when level with it took a broad track going right, back into the woods. After maybe 100 yards I took a footpath forking left (there was a yellow waymark on a post, but the path starts behind a seat so is easy to find anyway). This path was soon dropping downhill through the trees. The path ended when it came to a bend in a bridleway where I went straight on, continuing to descend the wooded slope. At the foot of the slope the bridleway turned left and passed a large old Ash tree (which I almost always photograph when I'm here).
The footpath forking left (from the track after I turned right by the Bridgewater Monument)
The footpath forking left
The bridleway continuing down hill
The bridleway continuing down hill
Painted Lady (this has been a wonderful year for them, I've never seen so many!)
Old Ash Tree (I almost always photograph this tree, it was nice to see it was still going strong)
Just after a field started on my right, I took a path that crossed the field to a hedge gap and then turned half-left to cross a larger field. After crossing the drive to Duncombe Farm (which was to my right), the path went steadily uphill across an empty pasture. After a gate, the path continued gently uphill along the edge of a meadow, with a wood on my left. From the corner of the meadow the path entered the wood, dropping downhill a short way then going quite steeply uphill to where a bridleway crossed it (this was the bridleway from the Bridgewater Monument that I'd been on very briefly earlier).
Start of the path towards the drive to Duncombe Farm
The path towards the drive to Duncombe Farm
The path continuing on the other side of the drive from Duncombe Farm
View back (in the direction of Aldbury)
Further along the path
Further along the path
The path continuing through the wood
The path rising steeply through the wood
The path where it crosses the bridleway from the Bridgewater Monument