Stetchworth Circular

(S) Start from Ellesmere Centre Car Park Grid Ref 641583. Park at the far end of the car park and walk to the end of the tennis court, keeping it on your left. Cross the road at the footpath post. Go through wooden kissing gate and continue southeast downhill between the paddocks. Go straight through the kissing gate and over the training gallop, and over the little wooden bridge, and take a dog leg to continue straight on towards Marmer’s Wood, walking beside the ditch. This is stewardship land you you could well see meadow pipits, woodpeckers, skylarks, bee orchids, badgers and deer – in the spring the bluebells in the wood are a delight. At the wood keep right to the corner, and over the little bridge and continue along the path for half a mile, with the wood on your left and paddocks on the right.

(1)At the corner of the next wood, Basefield Wood, turn left, and follow the path northeast, keeping the wood on the right. Deer are regularly seen here. Bear right at the tennis court and walk between the paddock and the hedge to Stetchworth Ley. Turn right along the road, past the terraced house.

(2) After 100 yards, take the path with a finger post northeast, alongside yet another wood. At the end of the wood the path turns left. Follow the line of poplars for 100 yards and turn right over the little concrete bridge. Follow this path around the field. Do not follow the path to the road, but turn right at the kissing gate in the corner, into the paddock, you will clearly see the water tower ahead and to the left. Walk straight through the paddock and exit through the kissing gate onto a driveway.

(3) Bear left to the road. (If you turn right along the road here, you will see The Blackbirds pub on the left in quarter of a mile). However, turn left towards the water tower. Continue round the double bend. Take the footpath on your right between the first two houses (not the bungalows) and then follow the path diagonally northwest across the field. Go straight in to the wood and follow the path to the right. Officially at the stream the path turns left and continues along the side of the wood, but unofficially most people continue along the path, which in the spring is a carpet of bluebells. The path runs parallel to the start of Devil’s Dyke.

(4) At the corner exiting the wood, turn left, with the field on your left and the hedge on your right and continue in a southeasterly direction. Continue straight over the track and through the gap in the hedge. Immediately turn right and follow the path which then turns left across the middle of the field. The path takes you over a little wooden bridge and back to the Ellesmere Sports field with the tennis courts at the far end.