Park either by the pub (the Baron of Beef – great for a post walk bevvy) or on the verge by the river Redlake (there are some picnic benches, great for a post walk sarnie) and turn towards Chapel Lawn. Turn left up the forest track to the wood ahead and turn right past the Forestry Commission sign ‘Bucknell Wood’. After a black and yellow barrier, bear left at a lay-by on your left and go past the gate onto a stony path. Follow this gently uphill, passing one bridleway and crossing another. After ½ mile a major track joins from the left but go straight on for another ⅓ mile until you reach a clearing. Go past the junction and follow the track as it curves right uphill with fab views to your right and Bucknell and Chapel Lawn below.
After ¾ mile the forest track comes to a gate, go through it into a grassy field (Stowe Hill) and you will see the gorse-covered ancient hill fort of Caer Caradoc directly ahead of you. Keep to the track and make your way across the field. Don’t go through the gate, but instead turn right and follow the byway downhill through two gates. Leave the byway and immediately bear left through another gate, down the field towards some buildings. Follow the hedge, steeply downhill. Cross a stile, follow the hedge to another stile in a field corner. Follow the sunken path between some old holly trees, bending left then right. Go through a boggy area, cross the stream and go through a gate. At a house called ‘Squire’, go through the buildings and through some iron gates, turning left onto the road.
Just after the road bends left, go through the kissing gate on your right (signposted Caer Caradoc). Continue up past a house, through some trees and through another kissing gate. Ignore the stile above you and take the grassy path all the way up the side of the hill (about ½ mile) to a third kissing gate. Turn left (back on yourself, see finger post) and up to another gate onto the ‘Access Land’. Go straight ahead and follow the path as it contours around the hill, then turn right steeply uphill through a gap in the gorse and through a gap in the ditches to the summit.
Retrace your steps back down to the finger post and kissing gate and continue straight on, through 3 more kissing gates and eventually out onto a road. Turn right and follow the road down hill. Turn left at the junction to walk along the river (Redlake) until the next junction where you turn right towards Pentre. Turn right past the first cottage and then bear left down the track to a garden. Go right through a small gate and into Brineddin Wood.
Leave the wood via a gate and cross the field to a stile and turn left onto the road to Pentre Hodr. Turn right (signposted Bucknell) but turn left through a gate onto a sunken road. Follow this path down hill, through two gates and eventually across a stream (you have to ford it) and go through the gate and climb up the hill towards the corner of the fence around some trees (on your left). Follow the fence and go through the middle (of 3) gate and turn right and up the field for about 100 metres. There is a stile in the fence/hedge on your right. Cross this field aiming for the highest electricity pole which is by a stile on the edge of the wood. Go over the stile and go through the trees, then bending left at the fence and down hill. Cross the stream and go over the stile, joining a track.
Follow the track, over a stile and cross the field to another stile and turn uphil (left-ish) and follow the path which eventually drops down to a fence. Follow the fence to a stile at the corner. Cross the stile and a cattle grid and follow the track down hill through several more gates and through a scrap yard and out onto the road (turn left). After about half a mile, in a right hand bend, take the bridle way on your left. It takes you uphill and through a gate and past some trees, after which you should turn right, through a gate. The bridle way skirts Bucknell Hill and you will see the river Redlake below you.
Go through the field gate, along the path, through a gate and onto the road and into Bucknell to where you started.
You have covered about 11 miles.
walkingbuddies 