🥾 Walk 67 - Stockcross and Boxford

The walk on Sunday 8th was a bit more conventional that the previous week's mystery walk. Not entirely conventional in that there was no picnic lunch-stop on this short walk as we would finish in time for Sunday lunch at the pub. There were 19 people on this walk, including a couple of visitors from other groups and a few new people trying us out.

We set off north from Stockcross through tree-lined footpaths between farmer's fields. It didn't take long for us to reach the River Lambourn, which we crossed by some interesting weirs. From there we continued north-west, following the Lambourn Way long distance path, which runs from Lambourn Village to Newbury. This led us to Boxford, a picturesque village with well-kept thatched cottages.

We continued following the Lambourn Way west, out of Boxford, crossing the river again at some more weirs. The route now went uphill through open fields. We departed from the Lambourn Way at Sole Border and headed south-west to Sole Farm, where we saw some sows with their piglets. The piglets were great fun to watch but the sows were rather protective and weren't very happy until we left.

Leaving the farm we headed south through Sole Common and Sole Plantation before doing a bit of road walking. This didn't last too long but did include a short section of the B4000, which is long and straight, and seems to encourage fast driving!

The route then took us through some more woodland and then more road walking, but on a very quiet minor road this time. Mike, the leader of this walk, has done this walk before but this time he has modified part of it. Originally the last part of the walk involved more road walking on the B4000 but Mike has found a permissive path through the woods back to Stockcross.

Without a picnic stop and pub stop en route, this 6¾ mile walk finished in good time. After changing our boots, we went to the Lord Lyon pub in Stockcross for a drink and some of us stayed on for a very nice Sunday lunch.

See our route on Bing Maps. (Try zooming in and out to change from Landranger to Explorer OS maps. Also try the Bird's Eye and Aerial views.)

📸 Back to Volume 5

Return to volume index