🥾 Walk 595 - Waltham St Lawrence to Maidenhead - Linear

The weather forecast for Saturday 5th August was surprisingly autumnal for the time of year. The Met Office had predicted heavy rain, thunder, high winds, and had issued an amber warning of flash floods. Not a good day for a walk in the countryside you might think, and you wouldn't be alone. Unsurprisingly, attendance for this walk was low. Only three of us met up at the Teapot Café bus stop in Maidenhead.

We caught the little village-hopping bus to Waltham St Lawrence. For half of the ride, we were the only passengers onboard. We alighted outside The Bell Inn in Waltham St Lawrence for the start of this linear walk. An early decision was made to put on waterproof over-trousers. (We'd already put on our waterproof jackets while waiting for the bus in Maidenhead.) It was the right decision.

A short walk down "The Street" brought us to a footpath that took us past Burringham Wood and through a short tunnel into Shottesbrooke Park. We took a detour to look at Manor House, where we saw two robot lawn mowers. It almost seemed as if they were robot guard dogs, as one of them came right up to us as we looked over the fence. Although the heavy rain hadn't started yet, there had been a persistent drizzle all morning, and the robots were struggling to mow the wet lawn.

Leaving Shottesbrooke Park, we passed a couple of fields of sheep and emerged at the edge of the cricket ground in White Waltham. A footpath through an upmarket housing estate and then across fields took us to Waltham Place, a 220 acre organic and biodynamic farm and garden.

Skirting around Waltham Place Farm, we found lots of ripe blackberries along the bramble-lined footpaths. We sampled quite a lot of these before stopping for lunch in a grassy field. The rain had eased up, which meant we could safely eat our sandwiches without them getting soggy. The M4 motorway could clearly be heard, as we were now close by, and would be for much of the rest of the walk.

After lunch, the rain started again as we headed north to Heywood Farm, seeing several deer along the way. Then heading east, we followed footpaths into Ockwells Park Estate. Much of this parkland is now a nature reserve in which Neil, our walk leader, has done voluntary work, planting suitable indigenous wild plants and trees. We joined Thrift Lane and followed it to a bridge over the M4 motorway.

Without crossing, we left Thrift Lane and briefly followed the edge of the motorway before looping around through more woodland. Now we were following the course of The Cut, a river through the nature reserve. We had to stop when the path we wanted to take was completely flooded. Our leader had anticipated this, so we back-tracked and took an alternative route up to Ockwells Park playground and café.

The rain was heavy and now accompanied by thunder as we followed Ockwells Road to a footbridge over the A404 dual carriageway. This we crossed and followed a mix of footpaths and roads back into Maidenhead. Following Shoppenhangers Road down to the railway station was quite hazardous as this busy main road was flooded in several places and passing cars were creating tidal waves over the pavements. Back at the car park, we said our goodbyes and headed home - just as the rain stopped and sun came out! See our route on Google Maps.

Thank you to Neil for leading this walk.

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