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Flitch Way & Lt Easton

A circular walk from Great Dunmow

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Walk summary

Summer

Wild flowers along the Flitch Way; birds in wood and hedgerow.

Some paths cross arable fields that may be ploughed; muddy paths in wet weather.

Park in Chelmer Valley Park, on Braintree Road in Great Dunmow, or bus from Bishops Stortford, Braintree, Chelmsford or Stansted airport

3½ hours

Gently undulating terrain, mainly on well-defined unsurfaced footpaths and farm tracks; footpath and road walk through Dunmow on the way back and short road sections elsewhere.

Click on a marker on the map for route details

Stage AB: Chelmer Valley Park to Woodlands Park

40 mins

From the car park walk away from the road across the short grass beside the River Chelmer on your left. Cross the footbridge on to rough grassland and bear right to continue more or less in the same direction. You come up beside a hedge on your left with playing fields beyond it, and turn left through a gap in the hedge on to the playing field. Head diagonally across the short grass heading for an exit midway in the far hedge, marked by a sign and refuse bin. Turn left up Lime Tee Hill when you come out on the road and walk up to the junction then bear right up the hill. Just before The Cricketers PH bear left up a slip road, looking for a footpath leading off left about 200m on, beyond a fenced area with a pond. It leads into an area of grassland, where you bear right across the backs of houses, ignoring a surfaced path leading straight on across playing fields. From here the path is waymarked round the back of a new housing development, ending up at a new access road called Woodlands Park. Follow it down to the road junction.

Stage BC: Woodlands Park to Little Easton

55 mins

Cross the road and turn right along the verge (ignoring the kissing gate immediately opposite), looking for a footpath leading off half-left about 50m down. The path crosses a brook, then goes through a kissing gate and along the verge of an arable field, passes to the right of a farm and stables and joins the access track beyond. Follow the access track all the way down until it joins a road, turning right along the road for 100m past houses, and turning left on to a footpath beyond the last one. The path runs around the outside of the garden then along the edge of an arable field, with a hedge on the left, with a final stretch between garden hedges before it reaches a road on the fringes of Little Easton. Turn left up the road, following it for 150m up to the Stage PH.

Stage CD: Little Easton to Flitch Way

60 mins

A bridleway leads off opposite the Stag PH, along Manor Road. Passing a cricket field on the right it bears left downhill past a house and garden called The Spinney, turning left at the corner. Through the next hedgerow, with a large pond on the left, grass paths diverge across the arable field ahead. Take the righthand fork up to the gates of Little Easton Manor, then through the middle of the buildings and out through the gates at the other side and down to the road. Cross the road and follow the bridleway past a lake on the right, then following woods or hedges on the right with arable fields on the left, apart from a short section across an open field. The final section is alongside a broad ditch and beyond it a substantial wood, Highwood, ending at Stortford Road (B1256). Turn left along the road for 100m, then cross to Buttleys Lane turning off on the right. About 200m down Buttleys Lane the Flitch Way crosses.

Stage DA: Flitch Way back to Great Dunmow

50 mins

Turn left on to the Flitch Way, following it all the way to where it finishes at the B1256 on the outskirts of Gt Dunmow. On the final section before emerging on to the road, keep left on the main track beyond the boardwalk, ignoring the path diverging lower down on the right. Cross the road to the footpath opposite and follow it for 150m until you come out on a suburban road. Continue along the road for 50m then take the surfaced footpath on the right that leads between gardens. After it crosses the end of a street, turn off left down to New Street, turn left again down to the High Street (B184), where you turn right for 200m to the roundabout, turning left down Braintree Road and following it for 400m back to the Chelmer Valley Park car park, which is on the right just beyond the bridge over the Chelmer.