Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Search our website:

Pages in this section:

• What's on
• Email list
• Tennis
• Rambling latest
• Garden club
• Babies & Toddlers
• Pre-School
• Barn dance club
• Folk at the Fleur
• Book Club
• Environment Group

Contact us:

If you have any comments or suggestions about the website particularly information about events going on in the village, then why not email us at:

Rambling - October 2008 Report

The 12th was one of the prettiest Sundays of the summer and 22 people joined the ramble in mild, sunny weather. Our objective was to see some of the Astons – two villages that have been just out of reach because of our former limitation of 6-miles; now that we allow ourselves up to 7-miles this seemed the ideal time to give it a try.

To get to the Astons without a lot of road walking requires taking the familiar footpath to Blewbury, which starts at Fieldside and skirts the old BSW. Once in Blewbury, we turned east on Church End and continued straight ahead on the footpath that passes in front of the vicarage and leads to South Street. A short jog took us to Bessels Lea Road and crossing the B4016 put us on the footpath to the Astons.

Just abeam of Blewburton Hill there is a kissing gate on the left that allows one to stay on the foot-path rather than continuing on to a bridleway. We almost missed this crucial turning and had to beat a brief retreat to the gate causing the first to become the last, etc. This segment (only ˝-kilometer long) is one of the prettiest bits of walking in our area and I really didn’t want to pass it by!

There are a few twists and turns in Aston Tirrold before we finally reached the footpath that runs east of the village; here we set out to explore some paths that were new to this group. We headed mostly east at our usual clip, then turned a very hard left to go north on a path that generally parallels Aston Street, and finally turned left to walk the short distance to intersect that road.

Upon reaching the road we made a dreadful discovery: half of the group had vanished like a snake who lost its tail! Frantic mobile phone calls and some very good commonsense on the part of the person acting as back-marker allowed us to “find” each other in only twenty-minutes. The leader learned some important lessons!

Continuing on, we walked into the Aston Upthorpe Stud on the bridle path and, having received permission the day before from the site manager, walked some private, internal paths that allowed us to go directly to the north-bound footpath that traverses the property. We saw some lovely – and very young – animals. We left this path at the intersection with the pylons and made our usual way home via the bridge over Mill Brook, Tadley, Fieldside and The Causeway.

A little over seven miles in a little over three hours in spite of all the “fun”! Next month we revert to our winter starting time of 1:30 pm. Don’t miss it.

Next Ramble
Sunday, November 9th
1:30 p.m.
Phone John Jones: 813326
Meet at the East Hagbourne Upper Cross