“Midgham Meander” with the Berkshire Weekend Walkers, 10 miles

Saturday 31 August

The Berkshire Weekend Walkers are a local Ramblers group. BWW’s average age seems to be younger than the other Ramblers groups I’ve been out with – probably around my own. They do note on their website that their group is primarily for people of working age and therefore focuses on weekend walks, in contrast to at least one of the other groups I've walked with who have a preponderance of older walkers and have their main walk of the week on a weekday.

This walk started from Midgham station car park (the station, as pedantically noted before, is in Woolhampton not Midgham, though the walk did take in Midgham village). I had pondered taking the train, before discovering they only run once an hour on Saturdays and I didn’t fancy potentially sitting on the station for up to an hour after having tramped for 10 miles. I decided against driving as Midgham station car park is not very big (it was indeed more or less full by the time I arrived) so got the excellent Reading Buses’ “jet black” number 1 service that runs twice an hour between Reading and Newbury.

The walk was well attended – around 14 people turned out for it – and led by a woman called Ruth with whom I had exchanged texts a couple of days before. We started out by walking along the A4 for a short way eastwards and, a bit bafflingly, turned into a garage forecourt. Turns out there’s a footpath leading off from the rear of this up a hill – it’s clear enough from the OS map but not at all obvious on the ground; I'm guessing Ruth must have done a bit of scrambling around to find it while checking out the route. She said that on the recce the path had been very overgrown and she had contacted West Berkshire Council about it – kudos to them as it had been cleared by the time of our walk. In this Street View image, the path heads off to the left of the white van in the back of the picture. In the snip below it from OS Explorer 159, the path can be seen going up between the 'h' and the 'a' of the Woolhampton village label.

The path’s a pleasanter (now that it’s been cleared) alternative to walking up Woolhampton Hill, which turns in off the A4 by the former Falmouth Arms. The path comes out onto the road alongside the grounds of Elstree School. At the top of the hill, the road comes to a T-junction by the former Douai School. We headed up the footpath to the right of the school and walked through Greyfield Wood to come out at Chapel Row. Here there's a pub - the Bladebone - and a café, the Blackbird Café, which someone said was nice. From some Google research it looks as though it’s occupying the former village shop. We walked along the road for a bit before turning in to some woods at a sign to Scotland Corner.

Ramblers crossing a field

Ramblers approaching Bucklebury

After the woods we crossed some countryside and then in to Bucklebury. We walked through part of Bucklebury Farm where there was much cooing over goats, alpacas etc. Just past this, we walked up a hill where Ruth suggested pausing for lunch to make the most of the view. We all whipped out our sit mats in unison and sat down. I was perturbed to find myself getting down onto the ground somewhat less nimbly than the woman next to me, who looked around the 70 mark. This sort of thing is part of the reason for the expensive stint of 1 to 1 personal training I am currently partaking in and may or may not blog about.

Pony at Bucklebury Farm

Coming up to the top of the hill above Bucklebury Farm

Saw this weird fungus in woodland passed through on this walk. What's all that about?

Fungus or poss alien life form

At Upper Bucklebury we stopped at the Cottage Inn for a drink and loo stop – in fact suspect the former was a thinly veiled excuse for the latter, though the drink was also enjoyable. After leaving the pub, we walked south from Upper Bucklebury via Blacklands Copse. The latter stages of the walk took in Midgham Park, where several of us admired what we could see of the house.

A couple of the group had brought secateurs on the walk, presumably to trim any rogue footpath overgrowth – in the event we didn't encounter too much, but one of the chaps in front of me did trim a few bramble fronds out of the way at one point, perhaps just to make it worth while having brought the tools.

Route below showing start and finish at Midgham station. The BWW's Scrapbook of Previous Walks page has a write up here (as walk 656).

Walk with the Ramblers from Checkendon, 7.5 miles

Sunday 21 January

Another walk with the Mid Berks group, organized by Robert, whom I’d chatted to on the Lower Earley walk a couple of weeks earlier. There were only four of us on this walk – me, Robert, Alison, who’d also been on the Lower Earley walk, and a guy of about my age called Douglas, who works in financial services for Bloomberg and commutes to their City office a couple of times a week. (I did comment that I’d been in the basement of his building and what a lovely job Bloomberg have done with the Mithraeum. I might be remembering wrong but I’m sure he said something about having had to do a Mithraeum Quiz as part of his induction. That might have been a joke, I suppose.)

This walk started and finished in Checkendon, a village about eight miles north of Caversham and about a 15-minute drive. We met in a small car park by a recreation ground. To get there, I made use of what3words for the first time – it worked very well.

From the car park, we crossed the road and took a path across a field, stopping to look back at Checkendon Court. We then took country lanes towards Hammond’s Wood, turning left before we got to it and crossing over the A4074. Before we got to the road, Robert pointed out John Buckley’s ‘Nuba Survival’ sculpture in the distance over at Hammond’s Farm.

Shortly afterwards we had a bit of a conundrum as the footpath is signed through the grounds of a property called Massey’s Pightle, but there was also an enticing sign next to it informing us that there were dogs running loose. We decided to skip that and carried on up the lane, which joined the footpath a short way on, though when we looked back the way we’d come there was a sign sternly saying “Field Cottage Only”. Clearly the two properties are fighting it out as to who likes walkers less.

Looking back at Checkendon Court

We followed footpaths through Woodcote and then took a path leading through the grounds of the Oratory School – in fact the right of way leads right past the front of the main school building. After passing the school buildings, we walked towards a bank of trees running alongside the A4074 and down a set of deep steps down to the road, which we crossed (again) and went up a set of steps on the other side. I’d guess these steps aren’t all that well used – I’d never noticed them when driving past (you wouldn’t, really; also, it’s a dangerous stretch of road and you’d do well to have your eyes on it) but did locate them on Google Maps/Street View later. Here are the ones on the Oratory School side of the road:

From Exlade Street we followed the path through fields up to Corker’s Lane and then turned right and into woodland, where we stopped and sat on a fallen tree trunk to eat lunch.

Field near Exlade Street

Woods

After lunch we carried on through the woods to Busgrove Lane, and then walked uphill through woodland towards Wyfold Court. Our route didn’t pass close by the house, though we did pause to get a glimpse through the trees of its turrety exuberance.

Wyfold Court just about visible through trees

Here’s a much closer-up picture that I took on a walk with Ray back in 2014.

We completed the walk via Basset Wood and Ipsden Wood back to Checkendon.

Route of the walk:

Walk with the Ramblers around Lower Earley and Earley, 4.4 miles

Sunday 7 January

I think I joined the Ramblers towards the end of the lockdown era, probably fired up with some desire to do some regular group activities, as well as discovering some new footpaths I wouldn’t have discovered by myself. However, although I’ve been enjoying receiving the quarterly magazine, with its invaluable sock rash tips, as at the start of 2024 I’d only actually been out on two walks, a pleasant ‘Caversham Byways’ walk with the Pang Valley group, in January 2022, and then another walk in September 2022 with the ‘Berkshire Weekend Walkers’, a rather faster-paced 10-mile country route from Kintbury via Inkpen (written up by the walk leader here as walk 537). But that’s managed to be it.

Copies of 'Walk', the Ramblers' quarterly magazine

The organization now seems to be known just as the ‘Ramblers’. Perhaps they felt the ‘Association’ bit was offputting for today’s younger folk - not that I have so far been on a Ramblers walk that included anyone much under about 45. I note in fairness that among the Berkshire groups there is one specifically for people in their 20s and 30s, which is probably a good idea in terms of attracting younger people - I don't suppose in my twenties I'd have wanted to go walking with a bunch of elderlies, much as you do meet some very interesting older people in the Ramblers.

Anyway, in a fit of New Year re-evaluating life/banging head against table etc, I decided I would try and make more use of my membership and actually get out for more group walks. The walk I chose was a gentle start, billed as ‘Leisurely’ and a modest length of only four and a half miles. This was a walk around Earley and Lower Earley, with the Mid Berks group. Lower Earley is an enormous housing development on the SE edge of Reading, apparently reckoned to be the largest private housing development in the UK at the time it was developed in the 80s/90s. (Indeed, this Wikimapia page reckons it was the biggest in western Europe, but it's hard to verify these sorts of stats.) I lived there for a year in the early 1990s in a rented house share with my sister Hannah. Here I am in the doorway of the house we rented (I appear to be wearing just a shirt and tights, but I suspect I had a short skirt on – ah, far off youth). It was quite a nice house and a pleasant enough area.

Me outside our rented house in Beighton Close, Lower Earley

For this walk we met in a car park by Chalfont Park in Lower Earley, near the Asda complex. I turned up early – having chosen to get the bus and therefore been limited to its timings – and a youngish (40s) chap also waiting in the car park eventually sidled up to me and we established that we were both there for the walk. Eventually around 10-12 people turned up for the walk, led by a spry 70-something lady called Jean, who has lived in the Earley area around 50 years and therefore seen the whole Lower Earley development be built up. She was able to tell us lots of interesting stuff including niche stuff such as which footpaths used to be through roads, which is exactly the sort of info I like.

We started off by walking past Asda and out onto Elm Lane, one of several former roads that are now no longer through routes for cars. Then crossed Rushey Way and proceeded partly along paths and partly along quiet estate roads to the Laurel Park recreation ground, which we walked along the edge of and then into the Maiden Erlegh Nature Reserve, which includes a lake. I assume that this nature reserve was originally part of the grounds of Maiden Erlegh House.

Maiden Erlegh Lake

After the lake we turned back towards Lower Earley, taking in Radstock Lane, another former road now partly footpath. Towards the end of the walk we did a circuit of Redhatch Copse and walked through the newish housing that’s been built on the site of the former Sibly Hall, one of Reading University’s halls of residence and somewhere I lived for a term while I was studying there in the 1990s (being on some sort of quest for the first half of that decade of pointlessly moving house as often as possible). Sibly was a somewhat bleak building that rose like some sort of beacon among the sea of housing that surrounded it. It was demolished around ten years ago and the company responsible posted a video on YouTube of the demolition - somewhat tastelessly to my mind, but I guess they need to advertise their services.

Another view of the lake

Definitely felt afterwards as though I'd taken part in some constructive activity/mixing, so we'll see if this continues. 

Route of the walk:

Kintbury, Lower Green and Inkpen walk with the Berkshire Weekend Walkers

17 September 2022

The BWWs are a local Ramblers group.

We met at Kintbury railway station for this walk, led by an energetic chap called Ian. It was a small group of walkers: only five of us besides the lead.

We walked westwards along the canal towpath for a short way as far as the footbridge. We crossed the footbridge and passed the splendidly Gothic vicarage on the right. Ian noted the connection with Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra. We then took the footpath that passes alongside the garden of The Blue Ball where Ian, who had clearly done his homework, stopped to mention the Swing Riots. Apparently Colonel Dundas rounded up a number of rioters in this area (?) and they were variously hanged/deported.

The gates of St Cassian's Centre

We walked along Wallingtons Road as far as it goes. It ends at a lodge for St Cassian’s Centre on the right and a footpath leading on straight ahead, which we took. So far it was the same route as this walk I took with Ray in November 2020.

We carried on through the wood – according to the OS map, these woods comprise Catmore Copse and Winterly Copse. At a junction of paths, we turned sharp right leading back towards St Cassian’s Centre and took the path leading across the field, passing Inglewood Farm and the site of the former Inglewood Health Hydro (still marked as such on my map, though it stopped being that some years ago).

Sheep near Lower Green

When we came out on Inglewood Road, we turned left (now diverging from the earlier walk with Ray) and walked along the road for a short way before taking a footpath leading to the left through a stud farm (Templeton Stud?). We followed the well-signposted footpath that skirts the stud and then headed south on footpaths towards Lower Green. When we reached Lower Green, Ian diverted us briefly to see the Church of St Michael, which is indeed very lovely.

Footpath through stud

The church of St Michael, Lower Green

After leaving Lower Green we headed eastwards towards Inkpen and stopped at the Crown and Garter at Inkpen Common. We didn’t go into the pub (though did use its facilities) but did go into a cute little coffee shop next door to it where we bought drinks and some people bought cakes.

After leaving we turned briefly right down Westfields and then left onto a footpath, and then crossed some of Inkpen Common, near to the intriguingly-named Hell Corner.

Inkpen Common

Passed an enormous modern house in extensive grounds with a Rolls parked out the front – from the OS map it might be called Godfreys, but hard to tell.

Possibly Godfreys

This was a pleasant walk through attractive and prosperous countryside on a slightly autumnal but still warm day. It was about 10 miles in length and the latter part was a bit fast-paced for me and the two other chaps on the walk: Ian and the two other women forged ahead while the rest of us lagged in the rear. The walk was written up on BWW's website here.