A walk around Chobham
Usually, our walks are limited to what Piper can and will do. But today she has been very sore on her bad paw, so Lawrence and I left her resting at home and went for a slightly more adventurous stroll – taking in Chobham Water Meadows and some of the paths further to the south and east.
Our walk was inspired by walk number 7 in John Quarendon’s book: Forty Circular walks. According to my notes in the book, I last did this in July 2011! This is an easy to follow route, a bit muddy in places so probably one for after a dry spell. We were getting quite smug about the lack of stiles and then met a few tricky ones that nearly had us turning back so, whatever you do, do not try to do this route with a lame greyhound! Google maps lost us a couple of times, but I am guessing it is about 3.5 miles long and it took us an hour and half – maybe a bit longer but we were stopping to take photos.
We started at the Water Meadows from the A319 (1) but as it is a circular walk, you could join it anywhere.
We crossed the bridge and followed the Mill Bourne towards the village (2). Lawrence had a bit of a paddle and became obsessed with some building work taking place on the other side of the river. Maybe they are not fully complying with the appropriate building regulations… We then went past the car park behind Chobham rider and turned back in the opposite direction past the cricket club. After a while, we met the very handsome Frankie (he’s a greyhound) and, after a chat, turned right onto the path that comes out by the old school development (3). This was quite a muddy section.
We crossed over Station Road and took a little loop around the wooded area at Milford Green (4). I’m not sure this was the nicest place to walk, but Lawrence seemed to like it. We then crossed back over Station Road towards Sandpit Hall Road. We turned right and walked along the road to the corner at Trotters Lane (5). We hadn’t had any problems with stiles up until this point, but this section contains a couple of tricky ones – in particular a double stile with a gap of about 18 inches between the two which Lawrence had to go over the first and under the second. He probably managed it more easily than I did. We met a couple coming in the opposite direction who suggested they could video our efforts…
Apart from the stiles, this was a lovely stretch of walk – we chatted to sheep, cows and horses. The section of footpath comes out on Philpot Lane (6) but quickly turns left away from the road over a couple of foot bridges. We then followed the Mill Bourne, enjoying a bit of shade and then finally getting back to the Water Meadows.
