🥾 Walk 35 - Whitchurch and Freefolk

Sunday 10th March seemed a rather cold and grey day after our recent preview of spring we had earlier in the week. Twelve of us gathered in one of the free car parks in Whitchurch, Hampshire, for this walk led by Greg from the West Berkshire Ramblers group. Most of attendees were members of the West Berks group but we also had a couple of newcomers and a couple of members from the Berkshire Walkers 20s & 30s group and our group.

The walk passed the Whitchurch Silk Mill, which operated from 1815 to 1985 and is now a museum, then went north through the town before heading north-east into the countryside. The route passed mostly through farmland and occasional woodland before turning south toward the village of Freefolk.

After a brief coffee stop outside St Mary's church, we continued through the village where we saw a terrace of 18 thatched cottages. These originally housed estate workers and were built in 1939 so aren't quite as old as you would first think.

As we left Freefolk, we stopped to have a look at the 13th century church of St Nicolas. A sign declared that it was no longer used for services but was still consecrated.

Inside is the tomb of Sir Richard Powett and opposite it is a painting of two men holding tablets containing the Ten Commandments. We left the village, first heading south, and then turning west back to Whitchurch.

The return route took us through open fields and then followed the wooded banks of the River Test, arriving back in Whitchurch by the old town mill. We walked through the town, taking in some of the sites, back to the car park.

After the walk some of us stayed on to have lunch in Whitchurch. This wasn't as easy as expected as two of the pubs weren't doing food and the other pubs were all fully booked for Mother's Day lunches. Eventually we decided to split up with some people settling for supermarket sandwiches and others going home for lunch.

A couple of us tried out the local Indian restaurant, which was very good. Even they had a Mother's Day Menu consisting of the chef's mixed platter starter and a main dish of your choice for £12.50! I had Chicken Nazakat, which I'd never heard of before, and it was excellent.

There is a Heritage Trail called the Mill Trail (published by Hampshire Country Council) that includes the villages we visited today on Greg's walk but it takes quite a different route. I might put the Mill Trail in our walks programme for later in the year. You can see the route we took today on Google Maps.

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