Family Walk at Bishop’s Wood, Staffordshire – Peaceful Woodland Escape

I knew this ‘getting out more’ bug was finally starting to spread to the rest of my family when my husband came home one day and declared out of the blue that he’d downloaded the All Trails app – and had even bought it as it was on offer for half price! He sat straight down at his laptop and started to show me what the app offered, as well as a local walk he’d found, that he suggested we did that coming weekend! I was beyond excited that he was now becoming as keen as me!

The Good

On the day of the walk the weather was pretty much perfect – dry and sunny, but not too warm – like it had been for the week leading up to the walk! We packed our bags and headed out to a layby that we had seen when we’d searched on Google maps, hoping it wouldn’t be rammed. It was around a 15 minute drive at tops to this location – I had no idea this place was so close! We found the layby easily, and thankfully, only 3 other vehicles were there. My husband had downloaded the route before we left, and got it started as we entered the woodland.

I absolutely adore woodland. I have done ever since I was a child, and jump at any opportunity to go for walks and adventures in them. It seems like there are hardly any thick woodlands or forests around me now, whereas growing up (in a different area of the UK) I felt we were always in the woods!

The walk almost immediately took us off the main track as we followed a trudged down pathway around the outer edge of the woodland. It was just absolutely stunning, to see thick expanses of trees and shrubs everywhere you looked! It really was absolutely beautiful, and so tranquil.

The Bad

After about a mile and a half in, the woodland thinned and a field came into view to our right, where a herd if cows in the distance had seen us, and came up to the fence to investigate. Initially very cute, these cows ended up causing a bit of a nuisance, and completely threw us off our walk!

We said a brief ‘hello’, then returned to the pathway. The cows began to follow us, which was funny at first, but then they broke into a run, with more cows joining them, and I remember being thankful that there was a sturdy fence and barbed wire in place, because they were absolutely tanking along!

Unfortunately, as if predicting our route, they all came to a huddle right by the gate we had to get through to continue the walk. The route lead up a track, just past the gate, but there was no other fence or gateway – it was all open – and having just witnessed these cows breaking into a mini stampede for absolutely no reason at all, I was not willing to take the risk of putting my children into that same field. I’ve walked through fields of cows all my life, and they are great animals, but these were clearly fiesty and very excitable – and far too close for comfort. we all agreed it wasn’t worth the risk, so disappointed, we retraced our steps all the way back to the end of that section, and decided to take an alternative route to join the trail slightly further up.

The Ugly

Having walked back to the intersection in the photo above, and turned right, we intended to follow the path which would lead us back to the trail, just missing out the farm section. We trundled along happily in what was initially quite a wide and easy pathway, but it soon started to narrow. Brambles, more than anything, were getting thicker and denser the further we travelled up the path. We soldiered on through but eventually it got to the point where there was just no pathway to follow: the brambles on each side had joined together, and to be frank, we’d all had enough! We’ve walked some rough routes in the past, but this one really took the biscuit!

Scratched and fed up, we turned back to fight all the brambles we’d just battled our way through. When we finally made it back to that intersection for the THIRD TIME, we were almost ready to call it a day and go home. The brambles were so dense, we were constantly having to stop to do up laces that had been untied – we’ve never had to re-tie our laces on any of the walks we’ve done before! We brushed off all the thorns that had attached themselves to our clothes, hair and bags, and headed back even further towards where we’d started, to the next pathway option. Disappointed to be over an hour into the walk, and yet only 0.8 of a mile from where we all started, we decided to take a ten minute break, grab a snack and a drink, and weigh up our options.

A Walk of Two Halves

Refuelled and feeling (mentally) a lot better, we all decided that we still wanted to do this walk, so we took this alternative footpath to try and yet again, rejoin the prescribed route. Fortunately, whilst narrow, muddy and nettly in places, this path remained passable, and eventually we made it to another of the ‘main footpaths’, where the path split 4 ways. On the map at the end of the post, you will see we came so close to getting back onto the right footpath, if only the brambles hadn’t been there! We almost wished we battled on – we must’ve been within a couple of feet of the end of the path!

Fortunately, none of the paths from this point onward were anywhere close to being the overgrown wilderness we had encountered in the first couple of miles, and the remaining walk was really very pleasant! We were able to just concentrate on the beautiful surroundings, the different bird songs, and whilst we didn’t see any animals, we did see countless ant colonies!

We had seen many ant colonies along the way, busy marching across the pathways, with the boys noticing how much longer they appeared to the “garden variety” we have at home. At one point, we stopped to take a look at some on a tree. I was fascinated, as they appeared to stand on their hind legs at times, but they moved fast and this was about the best photo I could take. My eldest wondered if they “spat acid” – I told him that no UK ants did this and not to worry, but I would Google the photo once home to find out what breed of ant these were. They are Red Wood Ants – and guess what? They DO spit acid! And to think I was getting pretty close to take these photos! My eldest was pretty proud that he was right 😀

The Final Stretch

The last few miles were lovely, with no pathway issues, no inconveniences, just miles of beautiful woodland that we could all enjoy. On the final mile of the walk we came across a little ‘camp’, with a tyre swing and a little den, and the children had a little break here. I’m guessing the Foresty Commission must run some sort of school or young person groups here. I was amazed at how much energy the boys still had left! It’s their longest walk to date, and it hadn’t been an easy one!

Family Feedback: Bishop’s Wood

Despite the setbacks and hiccups, we all enjoyed the excursion, and most importantly, we all want to come back again. Next time we will hope the cows aren’t in the field, or are much further away! Since our adventure, we have taken a look at the route we took, versus the route we were meant to follow: There were several points we came so close to getting back on the right track, but with limited signal (and no physical map) we had failed miserably! As it was a small walk, we hadn’t bought a physical map along with us (it’s the sort of place that you know you will eventually end up on a path to the exit), but if anything, this adventure has reminded us it’s always good to keep a physical back up, especially when we start taking on long walks in the “real wilderness”!

As you can see from our map, we were well over half way around the route when we finally got back to the intended trail, so we missed a huge chunk of it in the end. This just means there is another adventure to have at Bishops Wood, Staffordshire! 😉

TOTAL MILES: 5.67 | TOTAL TIME: 3 Hours (2:31 Moving Time)

Interestingly, the official Circular route should have been 5.9 miles, so we did have lovely long walk, just not where we had intended 😉