🥾 Walk 388 - Tyle Mill Lock and Ufton Nervet

Fourteen of us met up on Sunday 30th June, the day after a one-day heat-wave with temperatures in the thirties. Today was much cooler with temperatures in the low twenties and a pleasant breeze, which was much more suitable for walking.

The walk started by following the Kennet and Avon Canal from Tyle Mill Lock toward Sulhamstead lock. Then we left the canal and followed a footpath between two lakes (probably former gravel pits). A mixture of woodlands, fields and lanes took us through Whitehouse Green, Sulhamstead Abbot and Sulhamstead Bannister.

We stopped for our picnic lunch in the grounds of the demolished church of St Michael. There were several benches here, and the covered entrance/porch of the church, which is all that still stands. Some of us sat in the porch, where there were stone bench seats and a great wooden door without a church behind it.

After lunch, we continued our route through fields and woodlands, passing Ufton Nervet, Ufton Court and Padworth. We crossed a field near Padworth College where there was a black and white striped horse! Not a zebra, but a horse in a stripey drape.

We crossed the weirs at Padworth Mill and made our way to Aldermaston Wharf. Here we stopped at the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust Tea Rooms, where some of us had ice creams while others had tea and cake. The old cottage that is the tea rooms looked at odds with the very modern looking water-fronted houses either side.

Suitably refreshed, we left the cafe and followed the Kennet and Avon Canal towpath, passing Froudes Swing-Bridge, Towney Lock, and Ufton Lock. The tow path crossed the canal at Ufton Bridge and we continued to follow it until we reached Tyle Mill Lock, from where we had started. See our route on Google Maps.

Thank you to Ann and Kathy for leading the walk and to Denise for providing the photographs.

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