Horsley and Castle Wood Circular Walk

A lovely local walk through a bluebell wood is exactly what you need at this time of year. Taking advantage of the lovely weather we picked a local AllTrails walk and pulled on the walking boots and got going. We parked at the Stilwell Arms pub car park so with a bit of good timing there is ready made refreshment on your return!

It’s not a long or arduous walk but had a couple of hills and lots of fields. The recent dry weather has made for quite lumpy fields from animals tramping around when it was really wet so needed a bit of care underfoot but it didn’t spoil the walk. I imagine it can be a bit boggy sometimes but c’est la vie.

The bluebells in Castle Wood were so lovely in the dappled sunlight through the trees.

The route takes you within view of the A38 which was a bit noisy, but once back over the hill into Horsley, you could barely hear it. Horsley village was lovely - it’s an area I’m not familiar with even though it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from White Heather Barn. The church spire can be seen from the A38 and I always wondered where it actually was. The rhododendrons were just poised to flower so will be well worth revisiting in a couple of weeks.

After walking through the village we again took a footpath and came across some charming highland coos. The footpath across the fields meant we had to take a bit of a diversion to avoid walking through one of the fields with cows. We were extra cautious because of calves and bulls!

The very last part of the route before rejoining the road took us past a fairy grotto which was a little unexpected but quite cute.