This walk is to Stansted via one route and back via another, avoiding the main road apart from a short stretch. The complete walk takes about 1 hour 40 mins, with the option of travelling one way by train or bus.
From the top car park on the Playing Field go out of the double gates, turn right and head along the footpath at the top of The Spinney.
At the end turn right for about 50 metres before turning left into Alsa Wood.
After about 50 metres bear left, and continue along the wide, straight path through the wood and over the M11 footbridge and keep going along a track past a private house. Continue on when the surface changes and past a bridleway with a triangle on the left.
After about 100 metres turn left down a footpath beside a wood (actually Aubrey Buxton Nature Reserve).
When the field edge turns right, the footpath continues straight across the field to the corner, at the point where the bushes on the left meet the low-cut hedge on the right. (If the path is too difficult, you can follow the edge of the field to your right, then turn left and follow the field-edge alongside the low-cut hedge.)
Turning half left, the path continues between the hedge on the right and a timber fence on the left, and then through a small wood, past a very tumbledown barn with a semi-circular roof before emerging onto another field.
Here the path goes straight across the field to the furthest corner, slightly to the right of two tall trees close together, at the left-hand end end of the wire fence to the right. (Again, if the path is too difficult, you can turn right down the side of the field and then left alongside the wire fence.)
You now turn half right down the narrow track, initially with the wire fence on the right, before emerging at a junction.
Do not go down the hill; turn half left up hill on a private drive following the telegraph wire, then straight ahead onto a narrow track. Ignore the fork to the left and pass disused allotments on your right.
After a further 40 metres take the fork to the right (rather than the left fork which goes under a telegraph wire and alongside a hedge) and continue on a grassy path under two telegraph wires about 15 metres apart.
Then keep slightly left to avoid going under a third telegraph wire and follow the path round to the left, passing between fenced gardens and straight on to come out near the top of Grove Hill, where you turn right.
Proceeding down the hill, you come to Cork House on the corner on your right, with various establishments in Lower Street ahead of you.
To return to Elsenham, there is a bus stop in Lower Street about thirty yards ahead; the train station can be reached by walking along Lower Street and then continuing straight over the junction; but you’ll probably decide to walk back, as follows.
From Cork House, turn sharp right, than bear right into Lower Street, past the Dog & Duck.
Then bear left into Gall End. At North End House you have a choice.
You could bear right up the hill and after 50 metres find the narrow path on the left before Yew Tree Cottage, and then go back the way you came across the fields. Detailed instructions are not given.
For a more interesting return, you should bear left, past the black and white posts and follow a well-defined path alongside a garden which then opens out on the right to a field with a brook on your left.
The path takes a long bend to the right; about 40 metres after the telegraph pole on the left turn left, following the FP waymark and 'Wildside Walk' signs, onto the path which goes through the wood and then forks.
You should take the left fork up a steep hill which will take you to the left of a belt of trees until you reach the road (Alsa Street).
Here turn right and walk along the road for about 500 metres and as the road turns sharp left into Snakes Lane keep straight on along the track past the Nature Reserve on the right, past Alsa Wood on the left and over the motorway.
Pass through the wood and turn either left towards New Road or right towards Stansted Road depending on which part of the village you require as your destination.
