Eight of us turned up in Brightwalton for this 8 mile walk around four downland villages: Brightwalton, Chaddleworth, Leckhampstead and Peasemore. It was an educational walk too, as the leaders stopped at each village and told us a little of its history.
Leaving Brightwalton, we headed south-west, passing Spray Wood on our way to Chaddleworth. Catching a glimpse of Chaddleworth House before heading south-east out of the village, we followed Wick Lane (track) before entering Leckhampstead on Manor Lane.
We took a slight diversion to look inside St James' Church, built around 1860, which has a rather eye-catching brick interior. It reminded me of the decorative brickwork in the great hall of the Natural History Museum in London.
We stopped to have our picnic lunch on the triangular green in Leckhampstead where there is a war memorial of unusual design. Its obelisk shape is not that unusual for such a monument, but it also included a clock. We sat under the trees for shade while eating out packed lunches.
After lunch, we followed the Downland Villages Riding Route to Peasemore. Here we stopped at their local pub for a welcome drink.
The route from Peasemore to Brightwalton Green involved crossing numerous contour lines on the map. First a little bit of uphill, then downhill, uphill, downhill again and finally uphill to Brightwalton Green.
Here we found a tiny library of second-hand books inside an old red telephone kiosk. It was a short distance from here to Brightwalton village, where we had started our walk. See our route on Google Maps.
Thank you to Ann and Kathy for leading this walk.
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