On the way to and back from Yellowham Wood, I found the walk through The Snail Creep, which starts from behind Hardy's childhood/early adulthood cottage at Higher Bockhampton (more or less next to the statue erected in his honour by American admirers), very pleasant.
Didn't realise The Snail Creep was of any Hardy literary significance until reading 'The Hardy Way' (page 14), where Margaret Marande informs:
"This is the path Dick Dewy took from his home at Upper Mellstock to go nutting with his sweatheart Fancy Day in Grey's Wood, just west of Yalbury Wood in Under The Greenwood Tree".
Here, it can be deduced that 'Yalbury Wood' = Yellowham Wood and 'Grey's Wood' = The Snail Creep.
For some reason, of all Hardy's novels, 'Under the Greenwood Tree' is probably the one I least remember, with his great tragedies ('Tess'; 'Jude'; and 'The Mayor of Casterbridge') and semi-great tragedies ('The Woodlanders'; 'The Return of the Native'; and possibly 'A Pair of Blue Eyes') being far clearer in my memory.
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