🥾 Walk 47 - Brimpton and Wasing Park

Sunday 19th May saw 12 of us congregating at the car park by the Rowbarge on a cloudy but warm day for a walk led for us by Christine, who has lead many walks for our group.

We set off southward, along a footpath that followed the road before heading east past the old sand and gravel pits that are now lakes in a nature reserve. Turning southwest, we left the nature reserve and headed toward Brimpton village. Passing the Three Horseshoes pub and St Peter's Church, we left the village going south-west through a field of oilseed rape toward Upper Hyde End Farm.

Walking through Hyde End we then followed a footpath that ran along the edge of the River Enborne. We crossed the river on a footbridge into Inwood Copse, where we followed a footpath through the wood, which was populated by bluebells.

Coming out of the woods, we crossed some rather wet, boggy, open land into the hamlet of Ashford Hill. This land must be boggy most of the time as it was full of reeds. There were also a number of planks strategically placed in the wettest areas.

Crossing the B3051 we continued across slightly boggy ground (although the footpaths were surprisingly dry) until we turned north-east into Redlands Copse.

Taking the uphill path through the woods, we stopped off for our picnic where there were some convenient logs to sit on. After lunch we carried on through the wood, emerging into open heathland where the gorse bushes were in full bloom.

The gorse bushes were accompanied by their familiar scent, which always reminds me of those NICE biscuits we used to have when I was a child. I don't know if you can still get them. Other people have said that the aroma reminds them of certain brands of sun cream. Anyway, I think it's quite a pleasant smell.

The path stopped at the road through Brimpton Common, which we followed as far as the Pineapple pub. It seemed rude to walk right past without stopping to have a drink, so we stopped and had a drink. The pub had a lovely old-world feel, with its thatched roof, oak tables and open fire. As the weather was nice, we sat outside on the rather more modern-looking decking.

There is a footpath directly opposite the Pineapple, which we took. This led us through Brimpton Common and in to Wasing Wood. We followed a footpath that skirted the western edge of the wood, before leaving the wood and heading across open fields to Wasing Farm.

Continuing north-west through the mixture of woodland and fields that is Wasing Park, we emerged at Shalford Bridge, where we then followed a route past the large ponds, which probably used to be gravel pits just like the ones we passed at the start of the walk.

This route followed the road to Woolhampton, on footpaths either side of the road. Lee (a member of our sister group, the Berkshire Walkers 20s & 30s) was able to advise Christine of one of these paths, which hadn't been on her original route, and saved us a bit of road walking.

It wasn't long before we were back at the Rowbarge by retracing the first section of our outgoing route. We continued to enjoy the warm weather in their beer garden, sipping drinks and watching a number of barges stopping to operate the swing bridge across the Kennet and Avon canal. See our route on Google Maps.

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