Wolverton To Wheathold Walk (Original Walk description from 2012)

Approximately 4.5 miles, 2.5 hours

Map Ref: 566 588 at start of the walk

The walk begins at the George and Dragon, www.georgedragoninn.co.uk which is a free house and serves meals.  The public house is a listed building and reputedly replaced an earlier inn of the same name established after the Crusades at the head of nearby Brazenhead Lane.  Turn left along the road for about 400m.

Turn right at the side of Townsend Lodge, which has unusual brick and flint walls, and adjacent to it is The Forge.  The path passes through a 5-bar gate and go straight ON into the woods of beech and oak, and bluebells in early summer.  The path follows a track that bears left at a large oak tree after 100m.

Follow the yellow waymark sign through a clearing, and then through mixed woodland.  The track turns right (waymarked) at a gate and continues to reach Wolverton Road.  Turn left and pass the children’s play area on your right, and immediately past it turn right onto a footpath.  On the left is the Old Hare and Hounds which is now a private dwelling.   Pass through a kissing gate into the woods.

The wood is called Brock Copse.  Turn right and walk along the path, leaving the play area on your right.  Follow the path for about 400m, through a newly planted plantation until you enter a wood.  To your right is an area enclosed with wire.  At a T-junction, follow the waymark to the left, keeping the hedge and paddock to your right.   Ignore a small path that runs to the right at this junction.

Follow round, keeping the paddock on the right, and the woods on the left, to a kissing gate into a field.  Keep to the left-hand side of the field, to the next field.  In spring and early summer, wild flowers can be found in the wood on the left.  Go through a kissing gate and walk diagonally across the next field to a kissing gate in the bottom right-hand corner of the field.  Cross over the stream, and into a wood, skirting a pond to your left. 

Cross over a bridge into a field, following the enclosed path up an incline, passing a large new house on your left, until you come to a lane.  At the lane, turn left, and follow the track.  After a short while, it is joined by a larger track from the right.  The track runs downhill and at the bottom turn right off the track and follow the meadow, (waymarked straight ahead), which can be boggy in wet weather.  The track curves away to the right after about 400m, but veer left (waymarked).  After 100m turn right over a stile (waymarked), and then turn left, keeping open fields on your right and woodland on your left.

Follow the track for about 400m until you reach a clear and wide track curving away to the left, through woodland, which you should follow.  You will enter a wide, open field, which you follow, keeping the woodland on your left, (Clinkers Copse), until the path exits onto a lane (signposted) opposite Warden Lodge.  Turn left, down the lane (a sign indicating private road applies to vehicles only), following downhill.  You will pass Frith Common Barn, and Frith Common Farm on your left. 

At a fork in the road, veer left, with fields on either side, and at the end of the lane just before Spinney Cottage, turn right.  Across a small field (waymarked), through a gate, and into a field.  Cross the field diagonally to a stile at the top of the incline, and across into the newly planted plantation.  Continue straight along the path, which leads to a gravel track.  straight through the plantation for 800m until you reach the kissing gate near ‘The Old Hare and Hounds’.  Follow your return route to The George and Dragon from here.

 

Please help with updating the information on this walk.  This walk needs to be updated from the original 2012 version and if you follow this walk and notice a nice detail (an "instance of delight”) please send in images that we may use and a description of the item and where it is located.  Or if a walk reminds you of a personal anecdote, please sent it in to us.  The email address to use is in the below QR Code.  Just point your device camera at it and an email will automatically be addressed and prepared for you.  We will regularly update this walk with contributions from the community.