🥾 Walk 697 - Silchester and Calleva Atrebatum

Sunday 9th March was a very warm day for the time of year, reaching 18°C by mid afternoon. This may have contributed to popularity of Joy's walk, which attracted thirty-four people, including several newcomers trying us out.

We met up in the large Silchester Roman Town car park, which is near the remains of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which was built on an even older Iron-Age settlement of the Atrebates tribe, who originated from Belgium.

Our route took us north toward Mortimer West End and then west to Benyon's Inclosure, where we stopped to admire the large pond before heading south to Silchester Common.

Reaching Silchester village, we followed the Brenda Parker Way into Pamber Forest. Joy had warned us about the extremely muddy state of the paths through the woodland, but the past week of dry weather had improved them a little.

We left the Pamber Forest to the south-east, crossing the main road and entering more woodland by Bridles Copse. We stopped for lunch where there we a number of fallen trees, which acted as long benches for us to sit on as we ate our packed lunches in the sun-dappled woodland. After lunch, we continued on our way, passing through Latchmere Green before rejoining the Brenda Parker Way.

The Brenda Parker Way is a 78 mile long-distance path from Andover to Aldershot, named after Brenda Parker, who worked as a volunteer for the Ramblers in a range of roles over many years, including writing walks books, representing Ramblers on rights of way and access matters.

This led us to the Church of St Mary the Virgin, just inside the 2000 year old stone walls of Calleva Atrebatum. Next we went to look at the Roman Amphitheatre before taking the path through the centre of the Roman Town and back to the car park. See our route on Google Maps. After the walk, some of the group met up in the Calleva Arms pub for a post-walk drink.

Thanks go to Joy for leading this walk and Rob for the write-up.

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