A shorter route exploring the countryside between Falfield and Thornbury, including part of the former Eastwood Deer Park and Osprey Park in Thornbury.
The route starts at the Huntsman stop in Falfield, which can be accessed by the 60 or 62 bus from Rock Street Thornbury.
From the bus stop walk back past the war memorial and the church towards the eponymous pub and turn right up Sundays Hill Lane.
On your right is the Parish Church of St George, Falfield. Until 1863, Falfield was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Thornbury. Locals had to make do with a small chapel of ease without an altar, but in 1855 the estate devolved onto Sir George Jenkinson Bart, who built a new manor house and donated land to build a new church, which is dedicated to Saint George, presumably in Jenkinson’s honour, rather than that of the St George who was a Megalomartyr according to the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.
Go past Church Avenue on your left.
The lodge house, pillars and railings signal the fact that this used to be one of the entrances to the Eastwood Park Estate, which belonged to the Jenkinson Family, one of whose number was the Second Lord Liverpool, who was Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827. (This may be why the Eastwood Estate was not involved in the Great Poaching incident of 1815/16.)
Church Avenue now leads to HMP Eastwood, a women’s prison which received a shocking report from the prison inspectors in 2023.
Continue along Sundays Hill Lane until you come to the second footpath on the left (opposite another footpath joining from the right.
Turn left through a kissing gate into the Eastwood Prison Estate. Turn right over a footbridge, then keep right around the field to pick up an enclosed path at the end of a car park, which leads to a footbridge into a field.
Turn left and follow the newly enclosed path alongside the ditch on the left. Keep going past some farm buildings on the left. Go over a stile and continue along the enclosed path.
At the end you must turn left over a bridge to a gate into a field. Turn right and follow the right hand hedge past another field gate. After you pass some newly planted and fenced trees to an enclosed and gated path through a band of mature trees ahead.
In the next field, bear left to cut the corner of the next field past a dead oak tree to a double stile in the fence ahead.
In the middle ages, Eastwood was one of two deer parks in Thornbury. The other was Marlwood. The deer park by the Castle was a later addition. At this point in the walk, it is beginning to feel a bit like a deer park. There are several ancient oak trees in the estate, but they are not next to the footpath.
Head diagonally up the next field towards the wind turbine peeping over the hill. There is a difficult and redundant stile in the top left corner with a kissing gate beyond it.
Go through this gate and another kissing gate on the other side of a muddy track. This brings you into the field containing the wind turbine. You are now back in the modern parish of Thornbury.
The path goes diagonally across the field on a path that goes closer to the wind turbine than the route shown on most maps. The path has been diverted to go through a new kissing gate.
Through the kissing gate, follow the right hand hedge down the hill to another kissing gate.
Through the gate, turn left along the track and bear right towards the kissing gate next to a wood called Grove Gully. Follow the path alongside the wood to another kissing gate. Continue alongside the stream or ditch until you come to a kissing gate on the right. In the field, cut the corner to a pair of Bristol gates. Go through the right hand one.
Head diagonally across the field to a gate under a dead tree on the edge of the escarpment. Bear right around the end of Longman’s Grove to find a kissing gate in the hedge below.
In the next field cut the corner on the left to pick up a footbridge with stiles into a large field. Head straight across to a kissing gate into a smaller field. Head across to a stile and plank bridge onto Gloucester Road.
Cross the road carefully and turn right along the verge (there is no footpath.) Turn left up a minor road to a field gate straight ahead.
Through the gate, bear right across the field to a double stile into the Badger Road estate. Follow the path across Badger Road and past a tiny children’s playground to Morton Way. Cross the road, using the pedestrian lights and head down the path to the Osprey Park play area.
For children, this is the only possible meaning of the word park!
Go straight past the play area on a path that heads down to the Morton Mill Stream. Wind your way across the stream and up the other side.
On some maps this is called Picked Moor Lane Rhine. As any local farmer would tell you a rhine is is a massive drainage ditch (which this is not). Picked Moor Lane is over a mile away.
Continue straight ahead through an open space, which narrows between some houses. It opens up again behind a One Stop Shop. Keep right around the houses on the right and descend some steps to Easton Hill Road.
Cross the road to find a concealed path that runs beside the Christ the King playing field and past some garages to emerge by some steps at the end of Eastbury Road. Descend and turn right along the path which comes out in Maple Avenue. Continue straight ahead along the road to pick up a tarmac path down to the Streamside Walk. Continue straight ahead around the end of the playing field until you can turn left into Hillcrest.
Turn left and then right into Crispin Lane. Go straight ahead into Pullins Green, where you will see the Rock Street Car Park ahead across Gillingstool. The St Mary Centre and the bus stops are up to the right.
Thornbury Wayfinders 