Walk near Newbury, 7 miles

Friday 9 July

Ray and I both took a day off to meet up for a walk. We both parked at Newbury Wharf and crossed the road to where the bus station now is, next to what I am still calling the “new library” – Newbury Library has occupied the current building since 2000, when it moved from the old Carnegie building on Cheap Street where we used to go as kids.

Ray had thought it might be fun to use a rural bus service as part of our walk and had unearthed the number 5 services that stop at various villages north of Newbury. We got the 10:25 and got off at the entrance to Snelsmore Common, a country park north of Newbury where we often used to get taken as kids for a run about/blowing off of the cobwebs, etc. We found a bench and sat for a while to have a flask of coffee and moan about our excess weight issues, while scoffing an entire packet of Duchy Originals shortbread biscuits between us.

Waiting at the bus station

Just got off the bus

Common views

The plan was to walk from the common back into Newbury via Donnington Castle, but we had some trouble finding the right path to lead us out to Donnington, as evidenced by the two doglegs visible in the upper part of the route map. We eventually found the correct path.

Our route

This walk between Snelsmore and Donnington Castle was one we did several times as a family in my young day. Since then, the route has been altered by the construction of the A34 Newbury bypass in the interim, which now slices a neat gouge through what was formerly farmland north of Donnington. The footpath route has been retained, but now involves crossing the road by means of a footbridge. It emerges by what was once the buildings of Castle Farm – there’s a sign on a now-derelict barn about the farm’s Limousin herd, which I think Mum said she remembers seeing grazing in the area.

Path towards Donnington

Bridge over the A34

Donnington Castle

The Newbury bypass opened in 1998, after what seemed like many years of debate about whether, and if so where, it should be built. The eventual route passes to the west of the town and cut through three Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Progress, etc. My clearly quite old OS Explorer map labels the road as ‘Due to open late 1998’.

After looking at the castle, we turned back in the direction of the A34, past Castle Wood and crossing the road via a different footbridge into the village of Bagnor. This was a bit of a detour as Ray had been seized with a desire to locate the trackbed of the former Lambourn Valley Railway.

Crossing the bypass again

Bagnor

The route of the railway just here is well concealed and took a bit of finding, but Ray did manage to locate it. The trackbed itself was obscured by a lot of branches and general growth - I didn't fancy fighting my way through it, but Ray did and took the picture below, which we agreed was almost certainly the old railway.

Consulting the map, somewhere near Bagnor

Ray going for it

The trackbed

We turned back towards Newbury, passing through Woodspeen and crossing under the bypass, then via Speen Lane and past the leisure centre back into the town.

The bypass yet again

The last stretch near Speen