🥾 Walk 424 - Upper and Lower Basildon

On Sunday 26th July, we had a walk with two leaders. This meant that we could do the walk as two separate groups of six people, allowing twelve of us to go walking without infringing the current regulations. One group started at 10:00 and the other group at 10:30, so that we wouldn't meet. I was in the 10:00 group.

From Upper Basildon, we went south down Gardeners Lane and east through Knapp's Wood. Next we followed a lane past a couple of farms and onto to Pangbourne Road. We weren't on the busy road for long, taking a footpath through Barnard's Copse, Berry's Copse and emerging from Sot's Hole onto Shooters Hill.

Here we came across the Berkshire Walkers 20s and 30s group, who where on a walk of their own, going the other way. We chatted briefly - at a respectable distance!

Crossing the road, we joined the tow path that runs along the Thames between Pangbourne and Lower Basildon, on the opposite bank from the official Thames Path. We passed many fishermen along the way as we followed this path to Lower Basildon, where it left the river and took us to St. Bartholomew's Church.

Here is the resting place of Jethro Tull, the 17th century agricultural pioneer who invented the seed drill, not the 1970's progressive rock band! We had a quick look inside the church before heading off along the lane up to the A329.

We followed this busy road for a short distance before taking a footpath past Hillfields Farm to Harley Hill Wood. Here we stopped for our picnic lunch, while our other group stopped for their lunch by the Thames.

After lunch, we followed the western perimeter of Basildon Park on a quiet lane and then took footpaths through farmland until we arrived back in Upper Basildon, where we'd started. See our route on Google Maps.

The weather had been mostly good. After a sunny start, we had a brief rain shower, lasting long enough for us to put on waterproof jackets before it was replaced by sunshine again - a pattern that had repeated itself from time to time throughout the morning, but none of the showers were heavy.

It was good to have seen the Berkshire Walkers out walking. Not many of the local groups have restarted yet. In fact they met both of our groups on their route, whereas our two groups didn't meet each other at all. This method of doing one walk with two groups, half an hour apart, worked very well and is certainly worth doing again.

Thank you to Ann and Kathy for leading this walk.

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