🥾 Walk 599 - Yattendon, Ashampstead and a Brewery

The walk that Jane led on Sunday 27th August was a walk with a difference. We started with breakfast at the Renegade Brewery in Yattendon. The breakfast was optional and eleven people out of the twenty-three that came for the walk also did breakfast - and very tasty it was too. The walk then started from the brewery car park.

The brewery is just outside Yattendon village, so we headed into the village and then out again through Yattendon Farm. Continuing northward through farmland and woodland, we came to Casey Fields Farm, where there is a large farm shop that has been selling all sorts of meat and veg since 2006, plus it has a tea shop with great cakes. We didn't stop for tea and cake as we were still full of breakfast!

A footpath took us across fields towards Ashampstead village, where we stopped at the 12th century church of St Clement's. Inside were some 13th century wall painting that had been plastered over during the wave of Protestantism in the 16th century and remained hidden until the plaster started to peel away three centuries later.

From the church, we headed south and then east, through fields and woodland to Ashampstead Common.

A zig-zag path through the common took us to Burnt Hill Common. From there, we headed north-west to Calvesleys Farm before turning south-west and passing through Yattendon Park and the grave yard of St Peter & St Paul's church in Yattendon village.

After that, we retraced our steps from the village back to the brewery car park. See our route on Google Maps.

While some of us went straight home from there, quite a few of us (after changing out of our walking boots) popped back into the brewery shop/restaurant/bar for a drink.

Although we have done a few early-morning walks followed by a pub lunch, I don't remember us ever doing a walk preceded by a restaurant breakfast. I had wondered whether a cooked breakfast might lie heavily on the stomach while walking, but it didn't. In fact, it really was quite a treat. Perhaps we should do this kind of thing more often and Jane is leading the trend.

Thank you to Jane for leading this walk and organising the breakfast.

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