🥾 Walk 125 - Basingstoke and Old Basing

Twenty-one walkers, including several newcomers and a guide dog assembled outside Basingstoke railway station in remarkably warm weather for the last Sunday in September. This joint walk with the Berkshire Walkers 20s & 30s group followed the Basing Trail through various municipal parks and some pleasant open countryside.

We set off from the station and took an underpass to the middle of the surprisingly green and wooded Eastrop roundabout on the main road! Looking up through the treetops we could see the immense and highly reflective Barclays building. Another underpass took us to a plaza with fountains pulsing around us.

We followed a couple of roads to the War Memorial Park, with its monuments, birdcage and sports facilities. Then we crossed a bridge over the Ring Road and entered Black Dam Park, with its woodlands, ponds and children's play area.

Going under the M3 motorway link road, we emerged into the Crabtree Plantation, which despite its name has a large area of grassy open space as well as the trees. The nearby motorway could be heard in the background but was fairly well screened from view. Leaving the Crabtree Plantation we crossed the A30 into Basingstoke Common.

Crossing Basingstoke Common we entered the picturesque and historic village of Old Basing. Oliver Cromwell led his troops here in 1645 during the English Civil War. We stopped for our lunch at the recreation ground on the site of Oliver's Battery Motte & Baileys. There were plenty of picnic tables and benches to sit on. Some of us even had a go on the swings!

After lunch we crossed the River Loddon and walked through Cowdrey's Down to the Millstone Pub at Barton's Mill, where we stopped for a drink and to use the facilities. Suitably refreshed, we crossed the River Loddon once more, and then followed it as far as the Tithe Barn in Old Basing.

Next we followed a quiet lane past Basing House (ruins) and then through fields to an amphitheatre by Basing Lime Pits. From there we crossed some scrub-land and passed under the Ring Road into Eastrop Park. This family-friendly park has a rowing boat lake with fountains and a smaller pond for model boats.

It also has a café where we stopped for an ice cream before heading back to the plaza that we had walked through at the start of the walk. This time there were children playing in the water features. We didn't join them. Instead we returned to the railway station via the Eastrop roundabout and its underpasses.

This semi-urban walk was a bit different from our usual country walks, but gave us a chance to appreciate the green spaces in a sometimes underestimated town. See our route on Bing Maps.

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