Our verdict
A quieter pocket of the Bath Skyline's southern woods, soaked in the history that built the city. Walk it as part of the Skyline circuit — the give-and-take of woods, cow pasture and sudden city views is what makes that walk England's most popular for a reason.
Beech and ash woodland on the hillside where Ralph Allen — the stone magnate who built Georgian Bath — ran his tramway from the Combe Down quarries to the Avon. Adjoins Rainbow Wood and the Bath Skyline route, with Prior Park's Palladian bridge in the valley below.
Woodland on the slopes of Ralph Allen's eighteenth-century estate, open at all times.