If the footpath (WN21/16) from GR7491,3091 to GR7555,3095 past the lake at Ballands Castle is bad again it is sensible to use the alternative route detailed below.  

The existing route starts from the Top of page 35 sentence 1 with. "Ahead you can see Brickhouse Farm at the bottom of the wooded ridge. Continue along the farm road for a few more yards and then leave it by branching slightly right across pasture (85 degrees) and then heading for the gate and water trough at the edge of the trees. Arriving at the water trough go through the gate which is just a few feet to the left and so enter another field. Here go forward on a track with a fence left. Follow this down to a gate in a dip and so forward and up the other side, through the conifers, following the track all the way to the top where you meet an unsurfaced, crossing forestry road".

At this point you deviate from the waymarked route. "Here you must go left and then quickly right with the road, which soon becomes a lane, and so follow it into Pen Selwood village and so to the church where you rejoin the original waymarked route". This avoids trying to follow the alternative marked route which ends at the very muddy section where progress is very difficult. The only alternative you have at this point is to retrace your steps unless you are wearing wellingtons.