Our latest walk took us to the Ridgeway starting from the car park at Bury Down just off the A34, to the north of West Ilsley. We would be taking a circular route today in a northerly direction to the village of East Hendred and returning via Chilton. We had a relatively low turn out of nine which was less than I had perhaps expected but we could possibly attribute to the slightly longer mileage, advertised as 11 miles and perhaps location was further away for many of our members.
We gathered today wrapped up in layers, hats and the odd hat. Temperatures had dropped to near freezing earlier; we set off amidst much murk and mist. Sadly, the often lovely views of West Berkshire to our right and South Oxfordshire to our left were somewhat disappointing in the beginning.
Within a mile or two we reached our first feature of interest, Scuthamer Knob at Cuckhamsley Hill, formally in Berkshire but now just over the border in Oxfordshire. This is believed to be an early Iron Age round barrow but today it is more a circular bank with a round front which may be a result of historic vandalism. Although we didn’t stop here we had a quick walk over the barrow, admiring the “views” or lack of due to the fog and after twenty seconds or so we walked on.
Our route took us off the Ridgeway and descended past East Ginge Down and Knob Down where one person observed what they thought may have been an owl in the woods. On closer inspection it appeared to be more like a red kite. We would not to have known then but the mention of an owl would soon to become slightly ironic today
The footpath took us out to East Ginge – I’m really not to sure about some of the names around these parts! – And we then picked up the right of way at West Ginge. The mist was now starting to lift and following a short stop where a few of us took a layer off the sun could be seen trying to peak through.
We soon arrived on the edges of the village of West Hendred with the group observing a property next to us havingonly fairly recently been gutted by fire with a chimney ironically one of the few features to remain standing. At this point I decided to change the route slightly and ensured we kept to more soft terrain. A good choice I thought and it gave us an opportunity to take in a view of East Hendred in the distance. The sun was now beginning to break through and the mist and lifted completely.
We arrived in East Hendred, a lovely village that used to be in Berkshire before the boundary changes of 1974. We arrived via the Primary School whose emblem on the sign was an Owl; hence my mention of aforementioned bird earlier. Within the school grounds there was also a magnificently carved owl from a tree.
When I submitted the walk I decided to do things slightly different on this hike and planned to have not one but two pub stops as well as two slightly shorter lunch stops. My thinking was that it is always good to mix things up from time to time and with us being a relatively small group, meaning few queues at the bar and the weather being so fine there were no complaints. Well, at least none in earshot of me! So at 12.15pm we found a quite spot in the village and settled down for a bite to eat and then wondered into the pub where I ordered a quick half. We sat on the park benches enjoy the warmth of the sun on our faces for the first time in 2016 perhaps.
One point to note that not only did we spot another wood carved owl in a villager’s garden but we saw that a resident’s car’s registration plate had some of its characters made out to look like Owl. Sadly, I have not been able to find out the owl significance to East Hendred.
Drinks done we continue in a southerly direction, slowly but surely making our return journey. The footpaths were fairly easy to navigate with no obstacles to contend with other than the odd spot of mud. Therefore progress was at a good pace.
We eventually arrived at the edge of Harwell International Business Centre, a home for science and technology research. A part of the site was formally resident to a research establishment for Atomic Energy Authority. Rather oddly we did spot a random single walking boot left discarded here. We can only speculate as to whatever happened to its occupant.
The nine of us stopped at a footpath crossroads in Harwell field for our second fairly brief lunch stop, sitting down, relaxing and enjoying the sun rays again. My planned route had a technical issue in that we could see it possibly being fenced off in the distance and next to us was a road ahead closed sign. Although it may have been possible for us to venture through I decided to extend the walk up and over a nearby reservoir rather than have to risk us retrace our footsteps.
Soon enough we arrived in the sleepy village of Chilton. Well, I say sleepy, aside from the major roadwork’s that had interfered with our planned walk that is. The workmen had the day off today though. We strolled past a restored water pump before we stopped to slake our thirst at the second hostelry. We found a nice sun trap outside so yet again we were enjoying the spring sunshine.
We still had two to three miles left remaining all of which were completed over easy soft farmland with very few people other than ourselves around. At approaching 4pm we arrived back at the car park all having enjoyed another day out with the Berkshire Walkers.