Just over a week since going on a proper walk and decided to walk from home – the weather was a bit mixed and at one point near the beginning was sideways rain! However I persevered and dried out!
I decided to walk on the new footpath out of what used to be the boundary of Wantage – I wonder when they will move the sign announcing arrival in the town. This takes me past the first of the two estates where not so long ago there were fields. The second road does go down to the new school but there are also signs for a cafe – which I might investigate. However my signs for the path arrived before I found it, so next time. As I turn right and follow the track I cross over workings for the new road and there is a sign for the cafe, so I could have risked going that way round- This road is taking a long time to build!
I continue on until I reach the intersection with the old Wilts and Berks Canal and today I’m turning left. The canal is just about visible but very overgrown and although the avenue of trees is probably quite new I’m reminded that for a period in history this route would regularly have been trodden by horses and their leaders. At the first bridge that I come to it’s possible to see the rounded grooves in the brick were the ropes attached to the horses have worn hollows as the barges passed under.
A bit further along and an area I had missed last time I was near here. Lime Kiln Lock -again a reminder of a very different life all too easily forgotten and that industry even of a more gentle nature pervaded rural areas. There is probably a link with the numerous pits and small quarries below the Ridgeway. Providing a means of transport to Abingdon and thus the Thames or links westward. The lock appears to have also had a large basin, now overrun with bulrushes.
I’m now approaching another new development near the old airfield and extending the Stockham complex. Although there a signs of the canal all the way through it doesn’t become as apparent again until the section that leads to Challow – one of the areas that had extensive work completed on it a few years ago. Sadly too much building and reclaiming sections into private property has happened to ever make it navigable.
This is a great stretch to walk and comes out onto the main road in Challow, almost immediately I cross the village hall car park to take a footpath I haven’t been along for a few years. The start is the same as always but this again comes out into another new housing estate. This one almost joins East Challow to Wantage, the former being a village which has been much expanded in the last ten years. The extent of this type of building work has tremendous affect on infrastructure – no shop, no pub when once there were two and a village school which is now much expanded. So that’s the third new estate I’ve walked through today.
Back into town via a back way and down the Platt to the ‘Brook’ – a diverted stream from Letcombe Brook – to run the Mill. Clark’s Mill that produced Wessex Flour which is widely distributed has just closed down after very many years. My path takes me up towards the church and across this iron bridge. So many people have crossed this over the years – some probably on their way to the mill or like myself years ago accompanied by children to feed the ducks. Even after crossing many times myself I had never noticed the end posts and there fine design.
So to continue to home I passed along Church Street and passed the Vale and Downland Museum with it’s fine sculpture of John Betjeman who was at one time the Poet Laureate and for a while resided in Wantage. I cut through Post Office Lane and then up Trinder Road to come out by the Scout Hut – frequented quite a lot in previous years – now I only go for voting, and come out on Spring Road to come out opposite what for many years was a secondary school site but is now a huge new housing estate. So that’s the fourth in my travels today! Do a bit of up hill and then along a road which means I have to turn again and go down hill to home – good to have a bit of undulation! Not so long today only 9.5 km!
Marion's 50 Walk Challenge 