🥾 Walk 84 - Hook, West Green and Rotherwick

Since the group started in July 2012, we have only cancelled two walks. Both of these were this year and both were cancelled after the leader and a few walkers had turned up. Walk leaders have a duty of care and it is up to their discretion to cancel a walk if they feel the conditions are unsuitable or will become unsuitable before the walk is over.

If the leader discovers the route has become unusable before the walk takes place then we are usually able to swap walks around in the programme, and this is what we did with this week's walk. News of the Thames breaking its banks at Cookham arrived in time for us to swap the Maidenhead/Thames Path, originally scheduled for this weekend, with this walk from Hook.

Eighteen walkers turned up at Hook on Saturday 12th January on a rather cold and cloudy day. Thankfully everyone had received the news about the last minute change of plan and nobody turned up in Maidenhead.

I was leading this walk and was fairly sure we wouldn't find any flooding on our route, but I was expecting it to be rather boggy in places. It was; but not enough to sabotage our planned route.

We set off from Hook railway station, which was eerily quiet as no trains were running today due to engineering works. We walked southward and out of the village into Bartley Heath. This was as muddy as expected but didn't present a problem to us until we found a stream crossing the footpath. There wasn't a bridge but it was shallow enough to wade through.

Emerging from the woods, we followed a lane that took us north, past the edge of Hook. Crossing the A30 by the Crooked Billet pub, we continued north through open fields, roughly following the course of the River Whitewater.

The ground was quite waterlogged and in some cases the water was frozen. We crossed the river on a wooden bridge, crossed a field and walked past a lovely old house at Borough Court where one of the residents told us that the field we'd just crossed had been totally submerged a few days before.

From there we headed east to West Green House, which we circumnavigated and then headed west and uphill to Damale's Copse. It was a little after 12pm and so we decided to stop for our picnic lunch while we were still on high ground and we could sit down without getting wet.

After lunch we descended to the Whitewater and crossed it again on another wooden bridge. Again the water was high but not high enough to wet the bridge. Following the river for a short way, we left it to head west towards Stoker's Farm and then crossed the B3349 Reading Road on a rather awkward corner.

Taking a diagonal route across a field and then through woods we emerged onto Hook Road, which connects Hook with Rotherwick. My original plan was to cross this road and follow the footpath opposite but this had be waterlogged when I did the recce for this walk before Christmas so there was no possibility of going that way now. Instead we walked along the road for a short distance before taking a more substantial byway, which joined up with a footpath that took us into Rotherwick.

We stopped at the Coach and Horses pub for a drink before continuing our walk. The pub was rather full, mostly with people enjoying what looked like an excellent Sunday lunch, so we decamped to the picnic tables outside. Leaving the pub, we headed west and then south across Tylney Park golf course, taking care not to get in the way of any golfers or any low-flying golf balls.

Continuing south, past the back of Tylney Hall, we reached the hamlet of Newnham. Crossing the village green we took another footpath heading east, which took us through a farm and back into Hook. A short piece of road walking took us back to the railway station, where we had started our circular walk. See our route on Bing Maps.

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