Sunday 12 February 2023
This was supposed to be a bit of practice at walking up hills prior to our then-upcoming week in the Lakes.
Ray parked at Inkpen Common and we took a footpath leading past some woodland to come out on Post Office Road. We took another footpath that skirted a recreation ground and then across country to Lower Green.
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| Path through woods |
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| Snowdrops |
We turned off Spray Road to take a long straight footpath leading through open cultivated fields. Just before the path leaves fields to climb through some trees, we met two mountain bikers and Ray stopped to chew the fat with them briefly as to whether they had just cycled down the path up the ridge we were about to walk up. Think they said no, and that they weren't going to cycle up it either.
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| Footpath leading from Spray Road towards the ridge |
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| The path emerging from trees onto the hillside |
The path goes through some scrubby trees and then comes out onto the side of a steepish hillside. I didn’t remember ever walking this way up to Combe Gibbet before – it’s probably one of the steeper walks up the ridge. Great views though.
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| Ray ascending the hillside |
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| View from the path |
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| Snip from the OS map showing the ridge. Our path in the centre of the yellow square |
We walked east along the top of the ridge to Combe Gibbet, and then on to Walbury Hill. Sadly there's no public access to the summit of Walbury Hill (boo). At this point the path is on the route of two long distance paths, the Test Way and the Wayfarer's Walk.
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| Walking east along the ridge |
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| Combe Gibbet |
We made our way down and back to Inkpen Common, where we had lunch in the little Honesty Café next to the Crown & Garter.
My eye had been caught by the intriguingly-named Hell Corner, labelled near Inkpen Common on the OS map. This row of houses seemed to be roughly where it was marked. No clue as to how it came by its name.
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| Possibly Hell Corner? |
Our route:
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