Robust Rambles

Section 24 (Return)

Dawes Green to Irons Bottom

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

With ‘The Seven Stars’ pub on your right, go forward along the main road a short way to reach a roughly surface car parking area on the left. At the far end find a footpath going off by a metal gate.

Go uphill on an enclosed path with railings on your left to a wooden kissing gate leading to a field. Go ahead with a hedge on your right towards distant woods (the path actually diverges from the hedge and heads straight down the field to the lefthand end of the wood; easy to see if reinstated through crops, otherwise stay by the hedge all the way round to the same point).

Do not enter the wood but follow the edge all the way to a stile leading to steps down to a road. Bear right on the road a few paces then left onto a footpath. Go down a field edge with hedge of bushes on your left to an open space at the bottom. Go forward past two metal gates to a stile and cross into an enclosed path at the end cross Hammer Bridge and go up into a field past a ruined farm building.

Go straight on across the field. Notice a hedge on your right converging with the path. On meeting the end of this hedge, turn sharp right to follow a line of fence posts towards a wood.

Go through a gap in the hedge ahead and immediately turn left and follow the hedge on your left towards a distance house. Emerge onto a busy road by the house and turn left with care. Walk along the road for some way looking for a private road on the right going to Swain’s Farm. Turn right up this drive for ¼ mile.

Eventually come level with a black metal barn on your left. Here turn right over a stile and follow the hedge on your left steeply uphill to a stile. Cross this and bear right, away from the hedge, still uphill, to a stile on the brow of the hill.

This stile is at a junction of paths. Bear right diagonally downhill to a stile in the corner of the field. Cross this and keep ahead by a hedge on your right to a stile in front of Dene Farm. Cross and turn right on an enclosed path. Soon pass over a further stile into a field. Keep along by the hedge on your left to another stile leading to a concrete drive. Cross to another stile and enter a field.

Go diagonally right down the field to a footbridge and stile in the hedge at the bottom. Then on, across another field, bearing right of a farmhouse in the distance. Find and cross a stile in the hedge to emerge onto a road.

Bear left on the road a few paces then turn right to cross a stile by a fieldgate. Go away from the road along the field edge with a fence on your left (don’t be tempted to cross the fence into what looks like a path). Where the hedge and garden ends keep on across the field to pass between two power cable poles to reach the far corner of the field.

Go into trees and cross a long footbridge over a stream. Go on up an enclosed footpath and cross a stile onto an asphalt drive. Cross to a second stile and continue up an enclosed path to reach a crossing of paths by a house on the right.

For a shorter return to Irons Bottom with roadwalking turn left here along a farm track. Soon reach and pass farm buildings on your left. The track comes to an end at a small garden gate. Go through this onto a wide gravel drive with buildings on your left. Follow the drive all the way to a road and turn left on the road with care for ¼ mile back to ‘The Three Horseshoes’ at Irons Bottom.

For a slightly longer route to Irons Bottom with no on-roadwalking do not turn left by the house but go straight on over a stile into a field and walk down, aiming slightly right of the bottom corner, to a stile and footbridge.

Over these, cross a fence into a field. Turn left up the field, gradually diverging from the hedge on your left to a pair of metal fieldgates. Through these go ahead on a gravel track (this area is a clay pigeon shoot and there may be no waymarks) to a stile by a gate onto a road.

Cross the road onto a drive through buildings at South Lodge. Soon turn left and go through a wooden kissing gate then forward, to swing right, by a pond, up a broad way between old iron fences to a white fieldgate.

Continue forward on a broad grassy way between fences to a second fieldgate into a field. Go on following a hedge on your left towards an old barn ahead. Just past the barn bear left down the side of a wood to a stile by a double fieldgate. Cross and turn right by a hedge on your right.

Go along to pass under power lines to a gap in the hedge ahead. Keep on in the next field with the hedge on your right. When approaching the corner ahead, the hedge bears slightly left. Look carefully here for a concealed stile crossing onto the driveway of a house. Go down the drive to a further stile by a gate.

Over this turn immediately left to follow a field edge with a hedge on your left. At the far corner turn right for a few metres. Where the hedge ends, by a wood and power cables, turn left through a gap and then bear right to walk along the field edge with the wood on your right. Keep forward on this path all the way down to a road.

Turn left on the road, there is a pavement, all the way back to ‘The Three Horseshoes’ and the start of the section.