Ochre well path in Diges

Parking is available in front of the town hall on Place Marie Noël.

(D/A) Head towards the war memorial, keeping it on your right as you go up the road towards Montchenot. Go through Les Jolivets d'en Bas and continue as far as the sign indicating the entrance to Monchenot.

(1) Immediately turn left onto a tarmac road (Chemin des Sables) for around 50 metres and continue along the dirt track, leaving Rue des Châtaigniers on your left. Follow the football stadium on your right. Cross a road and continue straight ahead on the road leading to Les Méhuts. Once you have passed the last house in the hamlet, the road becomes a footpath. In front of the wood, turn left and follow the edge of the wood on your right for about 100 m, then go along the fields until you come to a road.

(2) Turn right and stay on this road until you reach Bréviandes. Shortly after the farmhouse, at the corner of the house, turn left onto the track to reach a cross-country path. Ahead is an old open-cast ochre mine.

(3) Turn left onto the road. Cross the road and take the right-hand shoulder. After walking uphill for 150 m, enter a small entrance on the left and descend steeply. You will come to a field and walk 50 m between undergrowth on the left and a field on the right. At the end, turn right for twenty metres or so, then left into the undergrowth. When you reach a fenced-in field, turn right and keep to the main path until you reach a road.

(4) Ahead is a stretch of water that used to be an open-cast mine. Bend left and cross the Verrerie Haute, keeping to the road. Reach a crossroads with a track on the left and a small lane on the right (opposite, a power transmission pylon).

(5) Leave on the latter, which quickly ends in a path at a crossroads. Forget the two side paths and enter the small path lined with privet trees that leads to the Butte d'Ocre.

(6) Do not go down this hill but turn right and, after a large hairpin bend, reach the foot of the hill. Follow the path along a field to a place called Le Château. As you descend, leave the next two tracks on your right and reach the D159 and the hamlet of Sauilly. Before crossing, look across the road towards the fortified farmhouse.

(7) Return left along Rue de l'Ocrerie and pass Chemin de la Ferme. At the first fork in the road, turn right and, in the bend, head towards les Mourrons - les Brots. Follow the old industrial building on your right, which is the former ochrerie and its drying room.

(8) Continue until you reach a Y junction. Turn left, still heading towards La Chenée - La Croix Joubelin. Take the first track on the left before La Chenée (La Chesnaie).
At the fork, leave this well-marked path and turn right onto a grassy lane. Forget all the side paths until you reach a service road level with a house on the right. Continue along this road and descend towards the EDF enclosure (transformer and distribution substation).

(9) Carefully cross the D459 to take the track opposite. Follow the fence on the right and pass under the HV lines, keeping to the track that follows the ditch on the left. Descend into the wooded area and then, after a stream (not always filled with water), climb back up, keeping to the main path, to reach the hamlet of Les Groniers.

(10) Turn left and then, at the T-junction, right onto the road for about 800 m.

(11) Turn left towards Verrerie Haute - la Tuilerie (signs on the left). At the first dirt track, turn right onto it. Quickly enter the undergrowth. Leave the first start on the left and go down along a gully on your left.

(12) Cross the small tarmac lane and take the green path opposite. Pass under the HV line and thread your way through the undergrowth on the left. Leaving the side paths, follow the waymarked path and then continue downhill on a sunken track. You will come to a side track with the D4 on your right.

(13) Turn left onto the road without crossing it. Keep to the left-hand shoulder as you pass the wash-house. Continue uphill, turning left at the first crossroads. Go up Chemin de la Garenne, leaving the stadiums on your left and, in front of the post office building, go down Rue de l'Ocre to find the war memorial and Place Marie Noël (D/A).