On Foot

On Foot CHAMPERNHAYES

Emma Tabor and Paul Newman

Distance: 2 3/4 miles Time: Approx. 1 1/2 hours Park: Car park to the east of Champernhayes Lane, near Wootton Hill. The starting point is where ‘Forest Walks’ are marked on Ordnance Survey Explorer 116. Walk Features: An easy walk around the woodlands of Champernhayes. Most of the walk stays in or alongside the woods and is relatively level, apart from a short downhill section where you leave the woods to pass through Spence Farm, and a steady uphill section back towards Champernhayes Lane. The wood has a mixture of beech, oak and conifer and there are some good views across to nearby Coney’s Castle and the coast towards Charmouth, as well as the surrounding hills and valleys which encircle this area. Refreshments: There are plenty of eateries and pubs to choose from in Lyme Regis >

Each month we devise a walk for you to try with your family and friends (including four-legged members) pointing out a few interesting things along the way, be it flora, fauna, architecture, history, the unusual and sometimes the unfamiliar.

For May we follow a relaxing route around Forestry Commission land at Champernhayes wood, near Monkton Wyld. The Forestry Commission was founded in September 1919 to restore the nation’s woods and forests following the First World War, and the passing of the Forestry Act.

Directions Start: SY 355 969 1 From the car park, follow the sign to Fishpond

Bottom 1 ¼, heading up a track. The track curves to the left and soon drops down towards a larger track cutting through the woods. Turn left onto this then almost immediately right onto a smaller track. After 100 yards, you soon reach a fence straight ahead of

you - here, turn right, through the beech bank you have been following, onto the lower path which forms the boundary of the wood. There is open pasture now on your left. Ignore any paths or tracks to your right and carry along the wood boundary footpath. In 350 yards, just before the path becomes narrower, a track leads up to the right, before you reach the returning edge of the wood. Take the right fork here, up through the wood, with the wood boundary to your left. Keeping a raised beech bank to your left in sight, you soon come to a crossroads of paths and tracks with a cottage visible to your left. 2 Take the track out of the woods, down the hill, to soon pass a house on your left. There are good views from here towards Charmouth and the sea.

The track bends left and you soon reach Spence

Farm and then Wodetone Vineyard. Here, take the footpath right, opposite the farmhouse, through tall metal gates, with vines on your left and a corrugated metal farm building on your right. Do not follow the inviting track around the top edge of the vineyard; instead, look out for a footpath sign on a tall metal gate just past the building on your right, which is not that easy to see. Go through the gate

into a pony paddock. Walk along keeping the metal fence on your left. As the field opens out, walk diagonally across into the far corner; there may be electric fencing in this field. At the far corner, cross over a rather overgrown wooden stile and fence to emerge into an orchard and campsite. Keep along the left hand side of the field until you pass through the entrance to the campsite and some buildings onto a road. 3 Turn right onto the road and walk along for approximately 200 yards, then turn left off the road, up a wider track, signed to Marsh Farm. Keep along this track and after a short while you will pass

Marsh Farm and lots of farm buildings on your left.

Soon after Marsh Farm, the track becomes more grassy and you leave the edge of the wood. After the track meanders for 150 yards, it turns right, back up towards the wood, along a field boundary.

Keep going straight up, eventually meeting a track through the woods. You join the track by going slight left to carry on until you meet the road, by a Forestry Commission entrance sign for

Champernhayes. Turn sharp right onto the road, and head back towards the car park where you started.