🥾 Walk 70 - Oakley, Dummer and Wayfarer's Walk

On the last Sunday of September we were promised good weather by the Met Office. There was just a sprinkling of rain as 15 of us waited to start the walk. The rain came to nothing and we set off along Station Road down towards the church.

We took a slight detour through the churchyard and then onto a footpath through Oakley Park. This parkland surrounds Oakley Hall, which can't easily be seen from the footpath as it is partly concealed by woodland.

The sun came out as we joined the Wayfarer's Walk, just south of Oakley Hall. Fleeces were removed and sunglasses donned while we stopped for a water break. Following the Wayfarer's Walks under a railway bridge and turning east we headed into Bull's Bushes Copse.

Emerging from the copse we came across some expensive and secure looking houses. A signpost made it known that the road was private and were corralled through a clearly defined and fenced path past Bull's Bushes Farm. The low fencing was tastefully done without spoiling the views and we were soon out in the open again crossing a recently harvested wheat field.

Heading south-east through fields and past woodlands, the slowly increasing background noise gradually made us aware we were approaching the A30 and M3 motorway near Dummer. Before reaching them we left the Wayfarer's Walk and headed north-east, joining the course of a Roman road that took us through Southwood Farm and Great Stubbs Copse.

We stopped for our picnic lunch just after the copse and just before the Roman road skirted the Kempshott housing estate on the edge of Basingstoke. Various dog walkers passed us by, but luckily the dogs were well behaved enough not to investigate our lunch too closely.

Continuing along the Roman road a little more and then turning left, we then headed west back toward Bull's Bushes Copse. (The route of this walk forms a figure-of-eight with Bull's Bushes Copse at its centre.) Heading north across another recently harvested wheat field we crossed over the railway into East Oakley.

After stopping for a drink at the Barley Mow pub in the village, we made our way back to the car park through alleyways between the houses and fields.

See our route on Bing Maps. (Try switching between Ordnance Survey Map and Aerial view by clicking on the controls at the top left of the Bing map. You can zoom in and out using the + and - buttons on the top right.)

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