With Hermitage Village Hall at your back, turn right, then first right into Doctors Lane. Cross a stile by a private road sign and head across the field to the next stile. Pass beneath power lines and make for a kissing gate in the boundary of the woodland ahead. Take the left fork and follow the footpath through the trees as far as a cottage to your left. Turn left when you reach the track, go past the cottage entrance, and veer right after 100yds (91m) at a public footpath sign onto a narrow path (which may be overgrown at the start). This drops sharply down through woodland to a lane. Turn right and walk along the lane to the hamlet of Oare. Go past its church and turn right into a lane with a small pond (which may be dry) on your left.

Go through a waymarked side gate and continue alongside a hedge. Leave the field at Little Hungerford and turn right onto the road beside a school. Turn left into Chapel Lane and follow the road round the right-hand bend. Pass Deacon Lane, then Pond Lane. Lawrence’s former home, now called Warborough Cottage, is on the corner as you head for the next road junction; its front entrance is in Pond Lane and its rear garden backs on to Chapel Lane. At the main road turn left, then almost immediately right onto a public footpath leading into Box Wood. Cross a stile and follow the track straight ahead deep into the wood until you eventually reach a waymarked post (green-and-white man symbol), immediately before a bridleway.

Turn right here and follow the (sometimes very muddy) track through the trees, keeping left at a fork, to eventually reach a road. Cross over by a bungalow and continue on the next section of track. Turn right at the next road and walk along to the turning for Boar’s Hole Farm, left. Follow the track to the farm and continue to a sharp left-hand bend. Go through the gate, right, and make for a gate and house in the field corner. Keep to the right of the house, via a gate, then turn right at a track bend and crossroads, passing through a galvanised metal gate onto a restricted byway.

Follow the woodland track and keep right at the fork. Cross a stream and pass a left turning. Take the next left path by a stream and pass over a staggered junction. Turn right by the pond, then first left, cutting through the trees. Swing right at the next junction and follow the track as it keeps climbing. Now within the ramparts of ancient Grimsbury Castle, keep left at the junction and make for the road by the castellated cottage. Turn right and walk along to the road junction. Bear left and return to Hermitage.