🥾 Walk 510 - Wayfarer's Walk, North Oakley and Hannington

Easter Monday saw nine of us (eight regulars plus a visitor) enjoying the surprisingly good Bank Holiday weather on a walk around Hannington. We started by following the Wayfarer's Walk heading south-east from the White Hill car park. It was uphill to start with and then downhill from Walkeridge Farm to North Oakley.

Uphill again from Manor Farm to Fremantle Farm and then downhill into Frith Wood, where the bluebells were out and nestled on the woodland floor amongst the wood anemones and even some wild daffodils.

We left the Wayfarer's Walk as it crossed White Lane, which we followed White Lane to the junction of Hannington Road. This then took us to Warren Bottom Copse and the Welly Boot Corner Walk. The start of this path had an actual wellington boot on the wooden signpost!

There were plenty more bluebells to be seen in this woodland. Emerging from Warren Bottom Copse, we found some long thin logs by the edge of a field where we could sit and eat our packed lunches in the sunshine.

After lunch we continued to follow the Welly Boot Corner Walk to the picturesque village of Hannington. Crossing the green and passing the church, we took a footpath leading to Meadham Lane, which we followed westward for a short while before heading north on an unnamed lane to Cottington's Hill.

Atop Cottington's Hill is a small caravan park and large television transmitter mast. The mast could be seen from many parts of our route, but it dominated the view as we walked up this lane. The view from Cottington's Hill was quite impressive, with large parts of Berkshire and North Hampshire visible.

It was downhill back to the car park, having covered 14km (8.7 miles) which included 457m (1,500ft) of ascent in total. See our route on Google Maps.

Thank you to Julia for taking the photographs while I led the walk.

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