Urban footpaths walk with Ray, 7 miles

Sunday 3 September

Back in September, but just sorting through some photos.

This was a walk around Green Park followed by walking back into Reading via the Coley water meadows. Much of this was on footpaths I’d never been on before, not all very attractive - but always interesting to discover new paths.

Following my earlier train ride to the new Green Park station back in July, Ray fancied a ride out to it too, so we took the train there from Reading. We started with a breakfast sandwich at the Triple Two café – the café’s in a nice setting but the service and presentation were distinctly limp. Our sausage sandwiches were well filled but in some remarkably dry sourdough bread that needed some application to get through.

After the café we crossed Longwater Avenue and joined the path straight opposite. We turned off past the Thales UK building and walked down the west side of the central ‘Longwater’ lake, coming out further down Longwater Avenue. We paused by the somewhat pointless-seeming mini-roundabout in the SW corner of the business park, near where Kybes Lane/Kirtons Farm Road crosses the M4. A lane leads off the roundabout, under the road bridge and into what looks from Google Maps to be an area of undeveloped land. I have a feeling that the original plan for Green Park was never fully realized – perhaps it was originally supposed to extend into this area? No idea what the plan is for this land now.

The pointless roundabout

Lane leading under bridge to undeveloped area

It's the land in this 2009 photo published by a Geograph contributor. I'm not sure it's much further on now in terms of development.

We continued along Longwater Avenue and then along South Oak way, past the Green Park Mast. Further on we were briefly diverted by the massive queue of cars waiting to get into Costco. Just before Costco, we turned left onto a secluded path leading alongside a small waterway (or possibly just a ditch) and round the back of the Lime Square development. We crossed Brook Drive and the Foudry Brook and made our way back out to Longwater Avenue.

The secluded path

The end of the path

The Foudry Brook rises in north Hampshire and joins the river Kennet at Whitley, in an unglamorous spot between the A33 and a retail park. This poor little stream evidently suffers from poor water quality due to receiving treated effluent from several sewage works along its route. The ever-charming Thames Water were "criticised" earlier this year for pumping sewage into the brook. A few harsher penalties wouldn't go amiss.

We left Green Park via Smallmead Road, coming out on the bend where Kybes Lane becomes Kirton's Farm Road. There's a derelict house on this corner - some research involving the invaluable Geograph suggests that it's Smallmead Cottages.

The derelict house(s)

Street View image of the other side

Since this 2013 Geograph picture, the tree/plant growth has been cleared and the door and ground floor windows have been boarded up. Wonder what its future is - and when it was last occupied.

After looking at the cottages we crossed the bridge over the railway line and a bit further on turned right off the road onto Cottage Lane, which leads north past fishing lakes to the River Kennet. It's a surfaced road for the first stretch, becoming a footpath further on.

Cottage Lane

After it becomes a footpath

The path eventually joined the Kennet towpath near Southcote Lock. We turned right and headed in the Reading direction, past Fobney Island, which has the River Kennet flowing to its south and a canalised stretch to the north, as per the pic.

Following the canal towpath towards Fobney Lock

At Fobney Lock we crossed the bridge that leads past the old pumping station and then turned left onto a wet footpath with a high fence on both sides - this cuts through the Fobney Water Treatment Works. This path isn't too pleasant and was flooded at one point - Ray managed to construct us a makeshift crossing by kicking a handy fence panel, plank or similar (I've forgotten) into position. It was a relief to come out onto meadow.

The path by the water treatment works

Crossing the water meadows

We followed a path across Fobney Meadow and the Coley water meadows that leads to a band of trees that excitingly conceals a stretch of disused railway line, complete with old bridge. This was the Coley branch line.

Bridge that carried the Coley branch line

Looking towards Coley Park

We continued following the path across meadow until it reaches the Holy Brook on the southern edge of Coley Park. I had had enough of meadows and little-used footpaths by this point and would happily have walked back into Reading along roads via Coley Park, but Ray wanted to follow a footpath leading towards Reading along the Holy Brook. I think he fairly swiftly regretted this decision - after a pleasant initial bit it became extremely overgrown with stinging nettles and he was wearing shorts. The footpath (such as it is) reaches an abrupt end at the Reading Link Retail Park and gets re-routed, kind of, around the end of the retail park and then up onto the main road.

Pretty gardens by the Holy Brook, before the overgrown bit

The overgrown bit

Walking around the end of the retail park

We had a brief bit of walking along the A33 before cutting back down off the road, past the 'Holy Brook Nook' and through the subway to come out by the Kennet, where we turned left into town.

Brief bit of A33 walk

Passing County Lock near the town centre

Our route below: