Cocking to New Farm plantation

Cocking hill-top car park on the A286 at SU875166 has been filled to the brim in recent weeks as everyone wants to fly like a bird above the turmoil of pandemic and enjoy the views far across the land. But the No. 60 bus between Midhurst and Chichester takes you there and back veery half-hour.

Taking the South Downs Way west gives you a view of the North Downs even as far as Lewes. You can see Blackdown too near Haslemere. If you keep on the SDW for a mile the view gets better and better. The steep north-facing slope of the Downs to your right often forces the wind to leap upwards so this is a good place to see red kites, buzzards, kestrels, ravens and crows hang-gliding, sometimes in company with gliders from Parham airfield.

So take the second left bridleway, turning south at the crossways down to Venus Wood. After 400 years turn right, now going west, through dense woodland to New Farm plantation. A flint cottage here on the Cowdray Estate was some years ago knocked down and now the trees have grown up through tthe ruins. This woodland is where the ravens live in the winter. I saw 16 here last winter and expect to see them again next.

Then you come to a massive clearance of 50-year-old Norway spruce woodland which has been replanted. I can remember when these trees had just been planted and there were dozens of grass-hopper warblers singing all night long in the moonlight. Hardly any of these now in the UK.

At present it is a place to hear nightjars singing at dusk, with a stonechat or two and some buzzards by day. There have been some groves of foxgloves too but these are going over.

At the next junction turn right, back to the SDW which may still have the beautiful white avenue of oxeye daisies blooming in thousands recently. Cross over the SDW through a metal gate by water troughs, now going back across a meadow with sheep north-east towards Bepton Wood.

There is a wide track downhill which looks quite ancient. It may even have been constructed by the Romans. The wood is 70-year-old emergent scrub of yew, ash, and beech. Many of the ash trees are dying from ash wilt.

At the bottom of the hill turn right at the junction.

Here there are old beech trees, and there is a good ground flora of wood sanicle, greater butterfly orchids, spotted orchids and fly orchids.

This is the place for greater spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches, and marsh tits: all together giving a breeding population of about 40 species.

Turn left along Henley Lane where cowslips grow in spring. This leads to Crypts Farm, where you turn right at the next junction, finding the lovely blue pool under the trees where the spring water rises that flows on through cocking village stop. Turn right to find the hill back to the car park.

If you want a diversion at the Blue Pool there is a magnificent old brick railway bridge, well worth admiring. Also a Trajan Column sculpture and tearooms in the village.