The Cherry Tree Inn - Route 3

(S/E) With your back to the car park of the Cherry Tree pub turn right and walk for around 50m and turn left into Busgrove Lane. Continue down the lane for about 400m until just before the end of the 30mph zone.

(1) Turn left onto a footpath marked with a yellow arrow and Common Wood Woodland Trust sign. Continue straight ahead following the white arrows through the woods until just before reaching the Stoke Row road where you take a path leading off to the right. Follow the way marked path as it meanders through the wood until a bridleway (blue arrow) is reached where you turn to the right.

(2) Follow this bridleway straight ahead, cross Neal’s Lane and walk past Neal’s Farm on the left until a split of paths is reached just beyond the farm buildings. Take the footpath to the right and continue straight ahead with a field to the right until a split of paths is reached. Take the left-hand path, continuing across a minor road for a further 25 metres until a small group of houses is reached and follow the footpath signs which take you through the estate going almost straight ahead but slightly to the right. Take the footpath alongside No.3, Mulberry House (sign likely to be hidden in a beech hedge). Follow the footpath into the wood, continue straight ahead, ignoring a footpath to the left, go through a kissing gate and continue through the wood until you reach a series of paddocks. (NB This path maybe overgrown with brambles.)

(3) Go through three metal kissing gates alongside Rumerhedge Farmhouse, cross the road to a footpath almost immediately opposite (signed to Hook End) and follow the footpath up the hill. After about 250m the path swings round to the right on a track then after a short distance, forks to the left following a painted arrow on a tree after which continues straight ahead until you reach Wyfold Lane. Turn right on to the lane and after a short distance bear to the right past Hook End House. When you reach Lower Farm take a left turn here onto another lane which leads down to the hamlet of Exlade Street.

(4) When the junction at the bottom of the hill is reached turn right, walk past the Highwayman pub and take a footpath to the right which is just beyond the pub. This footpath goes between the gardens of the adjacent houses then leads up the hill on the right hand side of a field; the path goes through a small group of trees then turns to the left. Follow the path until a gate is reached, go through this gate and follow the footpath which skirts round the left side of a large meadow from which you can see Corkers Farm to the right. Go through a kissing gate in the far corner of the field, cross Corkers Lane bridleway, go through another gate, then go straight ahead across another field to reach yet another kissing gate which leads into Checkendon Road.

(5) Turn right and walk along the lane using the grass verges as far as possible, past the old Four Horseshoes pub (now closed) until the church of St. Peter and St. Paul is reached where you take a footpath to the left alongside the church wall. Continue along the approach road to Checkendon Court and just before the gates to the House take a footpath to the right. Continue on this path with a holly hedge to the left until anther footpath is reached on the right; go through a gate and cross a paddock to another gate. Go through this gate; proceed straight ahead past many rhododendron bushes, along the side of Lovegrove Farm riding stables to Lovegrove Lane.

(6) Cross the lane to the path directly opposite, continue straight ahead past paddocks, through a kissing gate, across a field to another kissing gate; go through this and turn right onto another footpath. Go through a gate on to a fairly uneven stretch of path which is usually muddy; this leads to the top of two fields. Keep to the right going through an electric fence and continue downhill, with a fence on your right to the Uxmore Road.

(7) Go through the kissing gate, cross the road with care, to Judges Road opposite. (There is a post box here marked Broad Oak.) Continue straight ahead on this bridleway, after passing a house on the right, at the intersection with a footpath marked by a waymark post, turn left onto a footpath. Walk up the hill until a split of paths is reached. Take the lefthand path and at an intersection of paths bear right and follow the path round past a couple of dilapidated structures on the right until you meet another path. Take the enclosed path to the right and continue straight ahead until you reach a track at the end of the path where you turn left.

(8) Continue along this track which eventually leads into School Lane, walk along the lane past the school until you reach a T junction. Turn right and walk along the road back past the Maharaja’s Well on the left hand side to arrive back at the Cherry Tree Inn. (S/E)

According to local folklore, Judges Road is so named because it was part of the route Judges took from Oxford to preside at the Henley Assizes.