Walk via Marsh Benham and Stockcross, 4.3 miles

Sunday 2 May

I drove over to Kintbury and parked at the car park near the lock, and Ray drove us back over towards Newbury for this walk. He parked on a piece of wide verge by the B4000, just off the roundabout with the A4 and the slip road onto the northbound A34 Newbury Bypass.

We walked up the B-road a short way before turning left to follow a footpath across a field to come out by the A4. We then had to walk westwards along the road for a bit, before crossing the road and going through a cute little gate set into the wall of Benham Park, marked as a public footpath.

The gates of Benham Park

The little gate in the wall

The current house at Benham Park was built in the 1770s for the 6th Baron Craven, designed by the architect Henry Holland, the business partner and son-in-law of Capability Brown. The Wikipedia page currently has a picture of the house dated 1904, which shows the additional wing on the left that was later demolished during substantial alternations in 1914. It was the family home of the Sutton family from the late nineteenth century up until the early 1980s, when they sold it and it was converted into offices by the Norwegian IT company Norsk Data. 

It seems to have remained offices until about ten years ago. It went on the market in 2017 for 26 million, at which point it had permissions either to be returned to use as a private country house or to be turned into a wellness centre. I don’t know who bought it or what it’s currently being used for. We got the impression there might be some works going on there, but we couldn’t get close enough to the house to see much.

The public footpath through trees

The public footpath leads through trees along the northern edge of the park, then crosses open parkland to join the road that runs through the middle of the estate. Here you can see what was at one point the route leading from the West Lodge at the far northwestern tip of the estate – I seem to remember it being rumoured locally that the splendid gate piers at this entrance were haunted by a ghostly horseman (possibly plus carriage). It just looks like a grassy path over a field now, but the route is clearly visible on Google Maps.

We turned right and bore round past houses to exit the park at another set of gates near Benham Park Stud. We walked along the minor road here past The Red House, which looked to be doing good business in its garden. After a short way we turned right onto a footpath leading over a field, past some major chicken operations. This came out on a minor road near some farm buildings.

Gates

Buildings at Benham Park Stud

Chickens

We crossed the A4 and walked north up Nalderhill Road. We turned right onto a footpath leading through a rape field and then into woodland, where we followed the path and then a minor road back to the B4000. We turned right and followed the road through Stockcross back to the car.

Walking back through Stockcross

Our route below, with the start and end point on the right.