Essex Man Does Walking

I quickly planned this one before I took my son to school. Originally, I had called it the 4 woods and a couple of parks walk. However, on wandering around the route it became apparent that I had in fact planned virtually the same route as the Seven Woods Walk. Mine is a little longer but not by much.

So yes, seven woods instead of four.

• Belfairs Wood
• Pound Wood
• Tile Wood
• Starvelarks Wood (not actually sure you go into this one much)
• Cottage Plantation now called the Valerie Wells Wood
• West Wood
• Great Wood

The woods are so interconnected for the most part that you barely see civilisation until you leave West Wood. In fact I saw nobody in Pound Wood at all!

So I started where the Prittle Brook path reaches Belfairs and walked up towards the small children’s park, turning left and walking past the Woodland Trust Centre before turning right towards the main car park.

From here it was a walk under the trees alongside the Bridal path, till you get to the exit for Belfairs Park Drive. A left turn here and down to the ‘White Gate’ before leaving the wood to walk west down Poors Lane North.

To the right is a large mound of grass which is part of the reservoir. Taking a right you keep walking alongside it for a bit. It is here my OS maps stopped making sense and pathways didn’t exist. So I headed down Bramble Road until I found an entrance to Pound Wood.

I took the trail which went back parallel to the road I just came up and it then headed north. There is a lovely Bluebell Walk here if you come in the right season and there are lots of signposts pointing out interesting facts and locations.

Getting towards the northern edge of the wood I headed west coming to St Michael’s Road which divides Pound Wood from Tile Wood. Tile Wood is lovely and at one point you come to a lovely meadow. The roar of the cars on the A127 do not detract from the lovely countryside.

It is here you travel into Stevelarks Wood which heads alongside and around the Havens Hospice. The path crossing over the entrance road before you turn left and head down to Daws Heath Road.

Crossing over the road, I headed into the Cottage Plantation which is now known as Valerie Wells Wood. There are lots of interesting carved wood trunks dotted around the place. Valerie Wells Wood is directly connected to West Wood a very large open wood. Again I never knew this place was here, shame on me. I headed roughly south through the wood which was as busy as Belfairs Wood was with runners and dog walkers. At the South East corner I headed out and did a short bit of pavement slogging before heading down a small twitten into John H Burrows Park.

Walking through the park I exited on the far side and picked up Poors Lane which headed into the Great Wood in the Belfairs Nature Reserve. Taking an easterly route through the woods, I headed right when I got to the stream which denotes the start of Belfairs Wood.

Following the brook south I turned east at the edge of the wood and followed the well trodden path alongside the golf course till I got back to the start.

The walk is roughly 7.5-8 miles and took me 2.5 hours.