Weekend out on Ray's boat

Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July

Ruth and I joined Ray on his boat for a bit of a pootle down (actually, pedantically, up) the canal. The boat had been in the dry dock near Newbury marina for the week prior, having some repairs done and also for Ray to have a chance to do some painting of the underside. On the Friday evening he collected the boat and moored up overnight by Greenham Lock, where we walked over to meet him on the Saturday morning. The plan was to have a leisurely meander back to his mooring at Kintbury, stopping overnight on the way.

Leaving the mooring upstream of Greenham Lock

The walk from Newbury station to Greenham Lock made me wonder whether Greenham Lock Cottage was still standing. A friend of Mum’s lived there in the 1970s with her husband and two children and I remember going over there to visit them more than once. If I remember correctly, the cottage was accessed by a footbridge from the town side though I assume there must have been vehicle access, albeit looking at the site on Google Maps I can’t see where this would have been. I’m sure I remember there being an access bridge more or less opposite the cottage, plus a shakier-looking footbridge a bit upstream of it. However, memory being what it is, who the hell knows at this stage.

I asked the Facebook group ‘Memories of Newbury and West Berkshire’ whether anyone knew whether the cottage had been demolished – certainly I couldn’t see it, but the whole area has changed so much with the creation of the marina that I can’t really get my bearings. One chap replied saying that its site was the red rectangle on this Google Earth view:

This Heritage Gateway page states that:

The core of the cottage at Greenham Lock is of probable 18th century date, with a succession of later additions. The property was proposed for demolition and replacement with a new dwelling, and as part of the planning conditions, Historic Building Recording was carried out in January 2014 by Lang Hall Archaeology. The report concluded that the modern 'periodising' features have obscured the principal dating evidence and that only the core cottage is of any architectural or historic value.

Though the building is adjacent to Greenham Lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal (formerly the Kennet Navigation), it is unclear whether it was historically a lock keeper's cottage. The First Edition Ordnance Survey mapping of 1880-81 appears to label this as a boat house.

It clearly wasn’t still a lockkeeper’s cottage by the 1970s, if it ever was, as Mum confirmed that her friend’s husband had worked for Honeywell and had nothing to do with the canals.

Further searching confirms that the cottage was indeed demolished, and a new build erected in its place. Greenham Construction lists the New GLC among its portfolio of work (with some inaccuracies – it’s not in the centre of Newbury; there’s possibly some confusion with the lock cottage at Newbury Lock, which was indeed in the centre of Newbury, though it was demolished in the 1980s. It sounds as though GLC might have lasted a bit longer). Here’s a more extensive blurb re the construction of the new property: LOCK KEEPERS COTTAGE, SUSTAINABLE REPLACEMENT DWELLING ON AN ISLAND SITE, which includes the following:

The historic canal-side cottage was much loved by the local community and those travelling along the Kennet & Avon Canal, but in reality, it was flood-prone and uncomfortable to live in.

As a child, I remember having mixed views on it. It was certainly quite excitingly unusual to access someone’s house via a footbridge. If I remember correctly, the amendments made to it included a 70s-style slatted staircase leading up from the middle of the living area to the bedrooms; I remember that there was an additional back staircase, presumably the original. I can’t say I ever hankered after living there. As a child I determinedly favoured nice modern houses that weren’t by dark bodies of water, a preference that it’s fair to say I still have in adulthood.

Passing Newbury Wharf

We set off, passing Newbury Wharf. Ray bemoaned that recent redevelopments at the wharf have not included any boaters’ facilities; there are none between Kintbury and Aldermaston which given the increasing popularity of narrowboats seems a bit ridiculous. We passed under the little 18th-century Town Bridge.

Approaching Town Bridge

Some volunteers were manning Newbury Lock so we didn’t have to do the gates ourselves. The next obstacle after the lock is the swing bridge at West Mills. Operation of this is intended to be a simple matter of turning the key in the lock and then pressing and holding a button to open and close the bridge. Opening it went fine, and Ray took the boat through and moored up just past the bridge. Closure wasn’t quite so smooth: I kept my finger down until the bridge had got itself back in position and the level crossing-style gates had started to lift, then took it off, carelessly assuming that they’d make it the rest of the way up by themselves. Unfortunately they didn’t and stopped where they were. The handful of pedestrians who’d started forward to cross the bridge as the gates started to lift stepped back uncertainly, while I took my finger on and off the button in agitation and the gates jumped up and down. Eventually I took a punt on just holding it down again and hoping that the gates completed opening, which thankfully they did. The elderly couple who’d paused in their walk to watch me operate the bridge, with helpful input at one point along the lines of “ooh, you’ve messed that up”, shuffled off at this point.

Approaching Newbury Lock

Swing bridge open

Thankfully there are no more swing bridges between Newbury and Kintbury, though there are several between Newbury and Reading, and there’s one at Hungerford. There are seven further locks, though in the event we only passed through three on the Saturday before calling a halt to the day's boating. Guyer’s and Higg’s (just beyond the A34 bridge) went OK; Benham proved a bit of a git. The footboard looked ropey, wobbling and with the edge breaking off it, though Ruth did gingerly make her way across it OK; more problematically, one of the balance beams on the upper gates was bowing in the middle, making it tricky to push. I pushed it for a while but all it did was bow even more, while the gate remained unmoved. Ray was eventually reduced to ramming the gates with the boat, which may have shifted something; he and Ruth then pushing together on the non-broken beam managed to do the trick. I’m not sure what happens if you get stuck in a lock – I assume there’s a number you can call, as I guess it must have happened to people.

This Reading Chronicle piece from May notes that repairs had recently been completed to one of the lock gate beams at Benham Lock. It did look as though a piece of metal had been nailed over the dodgy area, presumably to hold it steady, but it was still clearly bowing. I suppose the metal might at least prevent it actually snapping in two.

Ray declared that he’d had enough after wrestling with Benham Lock – it was a warm day – so we moored up for the night just short of Hamstead Marshall. We cooked dinner – I had brought a small tonnage of pork belly strips from the Caversham Butcher. Due to my unfamiliarity with Ray’s oven it was quite late by the time we finally ate and we’d tanked a fair bit of wine by that time, so we only made a scrappy meal and had some meat over to bring back with us.

Our mooring position was just up from a small weir – I assume one of the many points where the River Kennet comes in/goes out. Looking at the map, we were just opposite Hamstead Park, where Ray and I had walked quite recently. There was some sort of tributary going off just opposite us, which online research suggests was probably one end of the Craven Fishery. We could see some sort of little wooden structure, though it was hard to get a good view of it.

Channel going off opposite

The little wooden structure

On the Sunday morning, we passed through four further locks: Hamstead, Copse (lovely shady position), Dreweatt’s and finally Kintbury.

Copse Lock

Approaching Kintbury. Horse-drawn barge moored up

Week off in May

11-15 May

I took a week off in May partly to do some walks with the Reading Walks Festival (see separate post). Aside from those:

Caversham Arts Trail 2026

After doing my first of four Reading Walks Festival walks on the Saturday morning, Ruth and I walked around three venues on the Caversham Arts Trail in the afternoon. We ended up walking five miles, to add to the five I’d walked in the morning, which was a bit more than I’d anticipated.

We started off walking up Kidmore Road to Sandcroft Road to see John Nicholls’ stone sculpture, though we ended up spending more time looking at Sue Bridge’s mixed media paintings which were displayed at the same property.

After this we walked to Hunters Chase to see Rachel McCrindle’s kiln-formed glass. Here we made our only purchase of the day, two of these cute little horses.

Hunters Chase is a road of mainly detached executive-style “family homes”, built along one side of the Hemdean Valley in the 1990s as part of a controversial development. The property we visited had a smallish garden ending abruptly in some sort of quite high vertical cliff. Google’s AI Mode told me the following:

The "vertical cliff" you noticed at the end of that Hunters Chase garden is a fascinating piece of Reading’s industrial history: it is the sheer wall of a historic disused chalk pit and gravel quarry.

and referred me to this planning report from 2008, which I think must relate to what is now Hornbeam Close, off Kidmore Road. This contains the following:

I digress. Our final visit of the afternoon was to a house on Albert Road to see Ally Evans Ceramics. Nice stuff but I made the decision not to make any more purchases, mindful of where exactly I’d put them.

Cassius to vet

We took Cassius to Cherry Orchard Vets in Gallowstree Common for a checkup before he could be prescribed more of the meds he takes for joint stiffness. For the second time we saw vet Sarah Fox, who on the previous visit charmed us (or me, anyway) by exclaiming “You’re a splendid elderly gentleman” when Ruth opened the pet carrier. I suppose rabbits either don’t often reach Cassius’ age or are in a poorer state than him when they do so. Cassius was born, according to his Health Care card, in September 2014, so – assuming he lives that long – will be 12 this year. He has slowed down over the past year or so – he no longer jumps onto things and no longer attempts the stairs, but he still reasonably often has a scamper out onto the landing, does a circuit of the back bedroom and then returns to his room, where he generally then has a lie down.

This time, Sarah placed Cassius on the consulting room floor to see how he moves, and did comment that he had “a bit of an old man gait”. Something to do with loss of force in his back legs, I think, though he does still recognizably hop – I think I’ve read about old rabbits losing their characteristic hopping motion. She asked us “How well do you think he sees?”, suggesting that his keeping right to the edge of the room as he moved about might be a sign that he was relying heavily on his whiskers for navigation. We have certainly had some doubts about the quality of his eyesight these days, as we often have to hold snacks right up to him. From what she said, some degree of sight loss is pretty common in elderly rabbits.

Both of us (me especially) are conscious that in quartering Cassius in an upstairs room - originally an emergency measure to allow him to recover from injury without being savaged again by Chloe - we have deprived him of access to the outdoors. Now that Chloe has died we could in principle have moved him downstairs again, but have been suspecting that he would immediately try and get back upstairs. Sarah seemed to be of the view that at his time of life and given his probably poor eyesight, it would be better to keep him in surroundings he is familiar with. Which I guess made us feel slightly better.

Below is a recent photo of Cassius after his dinner. He has a custom of tipping his food out of his bowl and then eating it off the floor, or sometimes flipping the bowl altogether so that it covers the food, as here, which seems to me an unhelpful way of doing things.

Mum's visit

Mum came for a short visit. I picked her up from the station on the Monday afternoon, the same day we had taken Cassius to the vet and also popped in to the Playhatch Garden Centre, though I forget for what.

Mum and I had originally pencilled in having a day in London together on the Tuesday, but hadn’t arrived at any concrete plan for what to do and I think both felt vaguely lazy, so we had a day in Reading instead. We headed first for Reading Museum as the ‘Reading: Then & Now’ exhibition had been on my to do list. It was quite interesting, though I wished there had been more old photographs included as opposed to drawings.

After seeing Then & Now, we wandered through a few other galleries – I hadn’t been to the museum in years and had rather forgotten what was there. One gallery was given over to a display of the work of potter Alan Caiger-Smith. I wasn’t familiar with him but Mum had heard of him, partly because apparently he and his wife at one point lived in St James’ Close in Pangbourne at the time my aunt and uncle lived there (early 70s) and the couples had been friends. Caiger-Smith founded Aldermaston Pottery in the 1950s. He was apparently an expert in tin-glaze pottery and lustreware. The museum published this blog post about ACS after his death in 2020: Alan Caiger-Smith, International Potter, Local Hero.

We also had a wander through the Natural History gallery, a fairly typical collection of faded/depressed-looking animals and birds. This stag was managing to look fairly assertive even in death though.

Stag

We popped in for a quick look at Britain’s Bayeux Tapestry, stitched in the 1880s by 35 lady embroiderers led by Elizabeth Wardle of the Leek Embroidery Society. I was childishly amused by the modesty shorts that had been embroidered onto this little chap.

Apparently, there's a whole debate over the number of penises depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry: Penis count debate rages over Bayeux Tapestry, though most of them evidently belong to horses. According to this BBC piece, the Leek Embroidery Society ladies worked from censored images so most of the appendages do not appear on the replica in Reading Museum.

For lunch, I took us to the Ori Caffè in John Lewis, which I had been hoping would be a tranquil retreat but turned out to be extremely busy. We managed to grab the last remaining table, where I had trouble hanging on to Mum’s chair while she was at the counter. The staff were shooting glares at a big party of ladies lingering at a large table and shrieking chummily, seemingly long after they’d finished their drinks.

After lunch, we had a walk via Forbury Gardens to the Abbey ruins. Just as we were about to pass through the archway that leads through to the ruins, we were stopped by a woman who asked us if we enjoyed fantasy novels. Mum replied reasonably yet firmly that no, she didn't, while I tried to size up whether the woman was a nutter. She looked quite respectable, so I replied that yes, while perhaps not a feverish enthusiast, I didn’t hate the genre and was open to reading them. I declined to actually buy a copy of her novel, The Nature of Shadow (she had a stash in her arms) but did accept this bookmark. The woman, one Emma R. Schofield, is evidently planning a number of sequels according to her website. I made the mistake of admitting to belonging to a book group, which triggered a gleam in ERS’ eye and an offer to come along to one of our meetings with a stack of copies of the book. I said I’d give it some thought.

On the Wednesday morning we went for breakfast at The Collective in Caversham. They appear to have removed all the bacon from their breakfast menu but Mum obligingly said she was happy with a smoked salmon bagel, while I had sourdough toast. Afterwards we walked to the station for Mum to catch her train, calling in to Your Local Convenience Store on Caversham Road to buy some frozen parathas (Dad had texted asking if Mum could acquire some to take home with her, as they struggle to get them locally). The chap there was a lot chattier than he ever is with me, advising Mum on a cooking technique seeming to involve spreading them with butter and folding them over. I suppose that is the way I’ve had them presented in restaurants. The Shana parathas that both my parents and I like are fine cooked in a dry pan as they seem to release a bit of oil themselves when cooking.

Circular walk from Kintbury with Ray

We started off with coffee and biscuits. Ray’s boat Lawrence is looking much smarter and more finished now.

Oak tree near towpath

Copse Lock

We walked down the towpath eastwards from Kintbury, past this gorgeous oak tree and the sheltered Copse Lock. At Hamstead Lock we left the towpath to take a footpath through Hamstead Park. We sometimes used to walk through here with Mum as kids – Dave reminded me that it was from Hamstead Park he had amassed the collection of empty gun cartridges he kept for a while.

Hamstead Park was owned by the Craven family from 1620 until the 1980s. A mansion was built there in the 17th century, but only stood for around a hundred years before burning down. Its most notable feature are the several pairs of stranded gate piers, weirdly now just standing in the middle of fields but marking the boundary of what was once a grand formal garden.

What I had thought said ‘Dark Dale’ on the OS Explorer map actually says ‘Park Pale’ – apparently a term referring to the boundary of a deer park.

We walked across the park, coming out on Park Lane and taking another footpath opposite, where we sat on a handy bench to eat sandwiches. Then we walked down into Hamstead Marshall and turned right through the village, passing this sign presumably erected by a resident. We chickened out of following a footpath that led through a field of cattle and took a slightly longer route round by the road, turning down Old Lane to meet the end of the footpath.

We followed the peaceful Old Lane for a bit and then descended Irish Hill back to the canal towpath.

Old Lane

Walking down Irish Hill back towards the canal

Reading Walks Festival 2026

After enjoying the couple of walks we went on at last year’s event, and meeting a woman who’d taken the week off work to do some of the Walks Festival walks, I thought this was a good idea, and as we didn’t book to go away in May this year, thought I’d take a week off and do this instead.

I booked on to four walks. I’d made a note in my diary to check the schedule in plenty of time, but still found the Historic Holybrook walk booked up and had to put myself on a waiting list. Thankfully a place did become available. I think I heard someone say in the course of one of the walks that the idea of the festival had been to show the attractions of Reading to people not from the area, but that in reality the walks had mainly been attracting Reading locals. There’s also quite a heavy Ramblers presence, as evidently REDA had approached local groups to ask if any members would be prepared to lead walks. All four of the walks I did this year were led by members of local Ramblers groups.

First walk: River Kennet and Green Park [5 miles]

Walk led by Joyce, of Windsor & District Ramblers – I’d say 70-something. And her friend Rita, who acted as back marker.

We gathered outside the station in front of The Three Guineas pub. From there, we set off through the town centre and from Bridge Street headed down to the canal towpath, where we walked along past County Lock, under the IDR and Berkeley Avenue, past the back gardens of Elgar Road, under Rose Kiln Lane and the A33 to Fobney Lock, where we paused. When we resumed we walked away from the canal down Island Road to come out by the tip (aka Reading Recycling Centre) and continued along to cross the A33 at the lights and onto the Kennet Island development, where we paused at the Fidget & Bob café, which had kindly agreed to make its toilet facilities open to us. In practice a good many of us also bought some light refreshments.

The Kennet Island development started construction in the 2000s on the site of the old sewage treatment works. In addition to housing, the site also includes a Hilton and a private hospital. The new sewage works is the other side of the A33.

Looking out from Fidget & Bob's across some sort of piazza affair

We unfortunately lost two participants – a couple, who evidently found the pace of the walk too fast. For most of the walk I walked just behind the leader, Joyce, with Yvette, a retired lady who was evidently a keen walker, though a double knee replacement a few years back has meant she can’t do as much as before. While we were progressing along the canal bank through Katesgrove, Joyce got a call from Rita asking her to slow down as the group was getting too spread out. We paused at Fobney Lock to wait for the tail; Rita eventually appeared sans the couple, who had apparently bailed out – she had directed them to a local café for a sit down.

The River Kennet by Fobney Pumping Station

After the café/toilet stop, we retraced steps out of Kennet Island and walked south to enter Green Park and proceed via Brook Drive and footpaths to the new(ish) railway station, where most of the group got the train back. I had brought some sandwiches with me which I ate sitting by the lake near the station, intending to get a bus back into Reading, but as it happened there was a train arriving sooner, so I got that instead.

At Reading Green Park station

The route of the walk:

Second walk: Walking the Historic Holybrook [7 miles]

Led by Steve, of Loddon Valley Ramblers. The tail walker was another LVR. This walk started from Theale railway station, though I got the bus instead as the timings were more convenient and then walked the short distance down Station Road. The walk leads, plus two or three of the other walkers, were on the same bus.

The Holy Brook is an offshoot of the River Kennet that flows alongside it to the north, from Theale into Reading. This walk was clearly popular, as I'd had to go on a waiting list initially and it was scheduled to be repeated later in the week.

I was a bit disappointed not to start from Arrow Head, the actual source of the Holy Brook, but I assume it is on private land. Steve did note Arrowhead Road on the left as we passed it. Instead we walked down the road to the canal and joined the canal towpath, which we followed for about a mile, past Garston Lock and under the M4. We then turned off left across a meadow and over the railway line to join the Holy Brook.

Garston Lock with its two pillboxes

Crossing the meadow to join the Holy Brook

We walked eastwards through the Holybrook Linear Park, south of the Beansheaf, Fords Farm, Southcote and Coley Park estates. Most of the route until Coley Park Farm was new to me.

Walking through the Linear Park

The Holy Brook near Burghfield Road

We passed this curious bridge carrying Burghfield Road over the Holybrook. What's its story?

The curious bridge

I did a quick Google search but the only thing I could find concerning this specific bridge was this exchange on Reddit, part of a thread called 'The Double Bridge':

After going up to road level to cross Burghfield Road we carried along through Southcote Linear Park and passed under railway bridges two or three times. We briefly joined the path following the trackbed of the old Coley Branch Line, which Steve reckoned he could just about remember trains on. The line used to run from Southcote Junction to Reading Central Goods Depot. I have no memory of it; it closed in the early 80s and was never a passenger line.

Following the old railway trackbed

We turned off the railway trackbed to follow the Holybrook as it goes up towards Coley Park (footpath shown in the Explorer map snip). The path crosses water meadows and the Coley Park Flats can be seen in the distance.

Looking across to the Coley Park Flats

The stretch from Coley Park Farm to the metal gate just before the rear of the Reading Link Retail Park was not quite as overgrown as it had been when Ray and I passed along it in September 2023, but still fairly nettley. Instead of being forced to turn off to the right, as Ray and I had been, along the boundary of the retail park and then onto the road, this time we carried on, emerging at a bridge over the Holy Brook just by the Admirals Court development. At this point, Steve advised us that it’s possible at a push to carry on following the Holy Brook further, but it’s overgrown and not too attractive. So we turned off and walked through the Admirals Court development up onto Berkeley Avenue.

Met an interesting chatty chap – must have been slightly older than me – who had grown up in Coley and said his parents had come over on the Windrush. He recalled swimming in the Holy Brook as a lad, and also in County Lock in January (strewth). He also claimed that he and his friends used to pinch bottles of beer from Simonds Brewery and store them in the Holy Brook for when they fancied a drink. He also remembered the Coley Boys' Baths, which seem to have been about where Admirals Court now is, though he claimed they weren’t all that nice as water from the Holy Brook got into them. I found these notes from another of Steve Vale's walks, this one from the 2024 walks festival, which mention the baths. I was also amused by the extract above from a 1930 Reading Standard, posted in an 'old Coley' Facebook group. Those baths certainly don't sound appealing.

From Berkeley Avenue we walked down onto the canal towpath and back into Reading. The Holy Brook goes underground near Brook Street West, and surfaces at intervals in the town centre until it flows into the Kennet at Abbey Wharf. Building works to the Abbey Wharf offices were obscuring the viewpoint of the two waterways meeting, so the fourth photo below was as close as I could get.

The Holy Brook underground, near Bridge Street

The Holy Brook flowing past the Oracle shopping centre

Abbey Mill Wharf

The Holy Brook flowing under the offices at Abbey Wharf

This was a very interesting walk though some of the route was almost certainly not public footpath. I don't think the disused railway line path is, though it's evidently an accepted walking route. The path behind the retail park feels a bit unofficial - the top right of the OS snip above shows the green footpath dashes abruptly ending at the retail park. Who knows?

Walking behind the Reading Link Retail Park

This walk felt more difficult than the one the previous day, though it was not all that long and was fairly flat. Perhaps I was tired by the five miles the day before plus five more miles in the afternoon accompanying Ruth around the Caversham Arts Trail.

The route of the walk:

 

Third walk: The Sights and SANGs of Spencers Wood and Shinfield [7 miles]

This one was a walk to the south of Reading, probably the side of town I know least well. It started from the Mereoak Park and Ride, south of the M4 near Three Mile Cross. Part of a relaxing week for me is not doing any unnecessary driving, so I opted to take the park&ride bus 600 to get out there from the centre of town. I’d had some vague expectation that the site might include some basic facilities like a waiting room and toilets, but no, it’s just a big car park with a few bus shelters.

A SANG is, apparently, a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace. We passed through at least two on this walk, Langley Mead and The Ridge, and possibly more that I failed to note down.

The Reading Walks Festival assign various handy labels to the walks to assist with judging which ones would be suitable for you. One of these is “healthy” walks (more walking, less talking from the guide) vs. “sociable” walks (a walk designed to make new friends while walking). Of the four walks I did, this was the only one categorized in the latter group and also the only one billed as ‘child friendly’. In the event, this walk felt at a brisker pace than the two previous ones – certainly in the second half, the leader, Richard, was striding off in front and had a go at persuading us (unsuccessfully) to skip the refreshment stop in Shinfield, issuing warnings about how long modern coffees take to make. Not sure what the 'child friendly' bit was about - there were no children on the walk (or on any of the four I did); I suppose that if there had been the walk leader would have had to tailor the content a bit. Additionally, though I had picked the walk out of interest in the route rather than as an opportunity to make new friends (am not much good at doing that to order) it was if anything slightly less sociable than the previous two walks, probably because it seemed to have fewer people who’d come along on their own. I was though mightily impressed by two ladies who were visiting Reading from Hertfordshire specially to take part in the walks festival - they were staying overnight in a hotel in town and then doing another walk the following day.

Woodcock Lane

We started off by heading north out of the car park up Mereoak Lane and then crossed the A33 into Three Mile Cross, where we turned immediately right onto Woodcock Lane, now a footpath but previously, apparently, an old droving road that went all the way to Basingstoke. We turned off after a bit and followed a path into woodland, and then across a field into Spencers Wood. I think Richard said the field was part of Spencers Wood Common.

Crossing field towards Spencers Wood

We walked through residential development in Spencers Wood and then towards Shinfield. I don’t know Spencers Wood well; was amused by Richard’s comment that although SW is called a village, it’s actually a T-junction. The old Basingstoke Road goes through SW, long since bypassed by the main A33 to the west of the village.

We detoured to High Copse Pavilion for a toilet stop; the festival had evidently arranged for us to be let in specially for this. (The downside of these sorts of events mainly attracting people of middle-age upwards, I guess.)

We walked through Langley Mead, apparently the biggest SANG on the route. It seems to be owned and managed by the University of Reading. I think the photo below was taken there though I neglected to label it when my memory was fresher.

Langley Mead, I think

We stopped, despite Richard's reluctance, at the School Green Centre in Shinfield, which includes a café selling light refreshments. I availed myself of a cup of tea and some sort of sweetmeat. Regarding the Centre's architecture: Richard told us that it had been controversial, but that he quite likes it. The building seems to have won a RIBA award. According to the linked RIBA piece, it's a "playful" extension to an old parish hall. This 2023 Observer review is headed "where Lidl meets idyll" (there's a Lidl next door to it - evidently many Shinfield residents had wanted a Waitrose, with a view to their house prices, but Lidl had won the day).

School Green Centre, Shinfield

After the break, we walked through The Ridge, another SANG and apparently the highest part of the walk, and noted the views of Reading to the north.

View from The Ridge

Towards the end of the walk the weather turned, becoming something resembling hail. I took the pic below as we were walking back through Three Mile Cross and I was wishing I'd brought gloves with me. Richard (in red) was taking no prisoners by this point.

Walking back through Three Mile Cross

The handful of us who'd taken the bus thankfully didn't have too long to wait for one. I went home to warm up.

The route of the walk:

 

Fourth and final walk: Kennet and Southcote [6 miles]

Another walk led by Steve Vale, a knowledgeable chap who’s apparently lived in Reading his whole life. In previous walk festivals he’s evidently led an interesting-sounding walk around Old Coley – a neighbourhood decimated by the construction of the IDR – but he told me he’s got a bit bored with it now so didn’t offer it this year. Fair enough. Maybe next year.

We walked along Bridge Street again and I was expecting this walk to have to repeat part of the route along the Kennet that I’d already walked the previous Saturday, so I was pleased that instead Steve led us over the bridge and through the foot tunnel under the IDR by County Lock. This comes out into Katesgrove, by what used to be the Hook & Tackle pub (and, even more previously, the Tanners Arms) but is currently the Namaste Kitchen.

We walked past the massive Victorian primary school and across down Elgar Road, a street of Victorian terraces. The houses on the west side of the road have gardens that run down to the Kennet. As we walked down Elgar Road there was a lot of comment from some in the group on the various modifications that have been made to some of the houses (as is the case on a lot of terraced streets). I took this photo of three that had retained a reasonably uniform look. Impressively decorative brickwork for such modest houses.

Well-preserved terraces on Elgar Road

Steve paused to look up Dale Road, saying that the site used to be Colliers Brickworks. I can find a reference to Colliers Brickworks’ Grovelands site, but I assume that was near what’s now Grovelands Road. So I'm not sure what that was about - perhaps I misheard.

The southern half of Elgar Road is industrial estate. Just before that, we turned off into Waterloo Meadows, an "urban park" next to the Kennet. I don't think I'd ever walked through there before; it's actually quite nice and surprisingly rural-feeling.

Walking through Waterloo Meadows

The Kennet from Waterloo Meadows

We briefly went up onto Rose Kiln Lane to cross over the Kennet and then re-joined the river path on the other side, and continued on as far as Southcote Lock, where we paused for a sit down and I had another go at a selfie.

The Kennet from Rose Kiln Lane

Fobney Lock with the pumping station beyond

Pausing by Southcote Lock (behind me) and Milkmaid's Bridge

Another selfie attempt

After the break, we crossed Milkmaid's Bridge and followed the path northwards across the water meadows, reaching Circuit Lane and the Southcote estate. We continued through the estate coming out on the Bath Road. At this point, two women reckoned they'd had enough and were going to catch a bus back into town. The rest of us walked through part of Prospect Park to come out on Liebenrood Road.

Kennet water meadows near Southcote

Trees in Prospect Park

The last part of the walk was along roads, which Steve seemed to think was less interesting but I quite enjoyed the cut-through via Kearsley Road and Parkhouse Lane as I'd never walked that way before. We walked back into town via Brunswick Hill and Baker Street, then down Russell Street onto the Oxford Road. Steve noted the Nag's Head on Russell Street, plus the former Pavilion Cinema, now the home of Life Spring Church.

The route of the walk:

 

Various photos were taken by the walk leaders; Alex of REDA assured me that they'd be made available after the festival finished but no sign as yet.