Page 48 - Phonebox Magazine November 2015

More rambling: Yardley Hastings
An easy circular walk, anti-clockwise from Yardley Hastings via Easton Maudit.
Duration: circa 5 miles about 2 1/4 hours, a few stiles at the beginning and a couple at the end, a
walk with gentle climbs up through fields and by small woodlands. Yardley Hastings is situated on the A428 and about 3 miles from Olney. There are two pubs in the village for refreshments. Park in the High Street near the junction of Little Street.
1. In the High Street, just opposite the junction with Little Street is a finger post signing a foot path between the houses, walk up through here to a double stile in to a field, keep straight across the field and over three further fields and stiles. The path now bears slightly to the left to the bottom left hand corner of this field, there are now two choices; turn left on to a permissive path for a couple of hundred yards and then right with the hedge on your right up to the corner of the woodlands or keep straight on up the hill with the hedge on your right for a similar distance and then turn left to the corner of the woodlands.
2. Keeping the woodlands (Cold Oak Copse and Easton Hickel) on your left proceed up the left hand edge of the field to a small bridge and then through to another small bridge leading up to an old barn on your left and then through the hedge to another small bridge. Now with a hedge on your right carry on up
through the field to yet another small bridge, and then on to where the field finishes with a metal gate on your right and a stone wall in front, turn left here keeping the wall on your right, this track leads down in to Easton Maudit eventually becoming a road at Oakfield House to the junction of the Grendon to Bozeat road at the church with the old oak on the small green.
3. However a couple of hundred yards before the junction and opposite a pretty thatched cottage on the right near Limes Farm we turn left in to a field with a metal gate at a footpath sign, keeping the hedge on your left proceed up the field and pass through the gate, and then down the bridleway bearing to the right to cross over the road, and then along another bridleway and down to a large bridge, here you turn left with the stream on your right to where the path meets the road. However a recent visit has shown this path to be quite overgrown, so you can always cross over the bridge and then turn left, keeping the stream on your left to the road, cross the road here and slightly to your left is a finger post in to a field.
4. Cross the road and proceed in to the field of rough ground, keeping the stream on your right follow the path over a couple of stiles and round the right hand edge of various fields, still with the stream on your right this path eventually becomes the lane back in to Yardley by the Sewage Works. At the road (this becomes the High Street) turn left and walk back in to Yardley Hastings passing the church on your left.
48 Phonebox Magazine
1a
1b 1c
1d 1e
2b 2c
2a