(S/E) From the front door of The Butchers Arms pub, turn right and then immediately right again opposite the Old Vicarage. Walk up the steep lane, bearing left up a bridleway.
(1) Beyond a gate, when you reach Sheepscombe Common, take the left-hand path up the slope. At the top of the common, turn left into the wood. Stay on the blue-arrowed bridleway when a footpath joins from the left. Ignore a second left turn, climbing to meet a track at a T-junction at the top of the wood.
(2) Turn left to an interpretation board, where you turn right along a bridleway along the woodland edge. Ignore any tracks and rides into the wood on your left until the track descends to a junction with a waymark post indicating bridleways in 3 directions.
(3) Take the bridleway straight ahead, which leads downhill through woodland. Ignore a path on the right, keeping straight ahead and continuing to descend. At a junction of paths, turn right. Bear left on a path that descends in a curve round a slight dip.
(4) Beyond a waymark, the bridleway meets the woodland edge and descends with views over the fields towards Brook Farm. At the bottom of the hill, cross the stream above the fishing lakes and follow the grassy path round to the left, behind and above the farm buildings.
When the path drops to meet the farm drive, turn right, uphill and away from the farm. Follow the drive round a right-hand bend (ignoring a bridleway to the left) and follow it past some houses on the left, with the open land of Cranham Common rising to your right.
(5) When you reach the road, turn right past a bench within a circular wall and follow the upper road across the Common. Keep along the road past a triangle of driveways on the right and walk past some houses to a road junction. Turn left, down the hill.
(6) At the next junction, by the village hall, turn left (signposted to “Sheepscombe” and “Church”). Follow the road across the common, back to the bench you passed before. (5)
Take the track opposite, retracing your earlier steps. Beyond the houses, keep on along the metalled drive, swinging left to descend to Brook Farm. Just before the farm, turn left onto the footpath you followed before that skirts the buildings and drops to cross the stream. (4) Climb the path beyond and continue uphill through the woods, keeping left at a waymarked junction.
(3) At a crossroads of bridleways at the top of the wood, turn right (downhill into the wood).
(7) At the bottom of the wood, turn left onto a path just within the woodland edge, with glorious views to Painswick and, later, Sheepscombe. Climb to a crossways, then bear right, initially still along the bottom of the wood, then with woodland on both sides.
Cross a ride cut for power lines, then take the lower (right-hand) path at a fork. Follow the most obvious path, ignoring crossing paths, to return to the foot of Sheepscombe Common. (1) Join the path along the bottom fence, to your right, then swing right into the trees and descend the track to The Butchers Arms. (S/E)
