Length: 26.9 km (16.7 mi) [shortcuts possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: 410 m
Net Walking Time: ca. 6 hours
Toughness: 6 out of 10
Take the 10.32 Paignton train from Paddington (11.01 Reading,
11.16 Newbury,
11.25 Hungerford), arriving Pewsey
at 11.36.
Return trains: 14.56 (68 mins), 16.57 (67 mins), 19.01 (70 mins) or 22.14 (79 mins). All return
trains stop in Newbury and Reading and all but the last one also in
Hungerford, so a split ticket London – Hungerford and Hungerford- Pewsey
will give you the best prices (unless you are planning to take the last train
back, in which case split the ticket at Newbury).
The Network Railcard is valid to Hungerford, so split the ticket
there AND take a rtn train no later than the 19.01.
Exhilarating excursion through the solitude of the Vale of Pewsey, which
separates the chalk upland of the North Wessex Downs to the north from that of
Salisbury Plain to the south, including an ascent up the southerly hill chain
of the Marlborough Downs, from where there are stunning far views in all
directions over this land of wave-like hills, with its scarps, ridges and
valleys. It is a mysterious landscape, full of pre-historic earthworks and
hillforts as well as barrows – burial mounds of kings and warriors. After a
scenic descent back into the Vale of Pewsey, your tea option is in the
hamlet of Honeystreet. Finally, an undemanding stretch along the Kennet
& Avon Canal leads back to Pewsey.
Two Shortcuts on the
Downs are possible, they reduce the walk by 3.5 km (2.1 mi) or 3.4 km
(2.1 mi) respectively. See route map and pdf for details.
Lunch: Picnic.
Tea: Honeystreet Mill
Café in Honeystreet (19.6 km/12.2 mi, open to 17.00), or The Barge Inn (open all
day, food to 16.00), also in Honeystreet, plus one other en route and several
others in Pewsey; check page 2 of the walk directions pdf.
For summary, walk directions, map, height profile,
photos and gpx/kml files click here.
T=swc.127
4 comments:
I will add that groupsave tickets are available for this journey. This requires at least 3 people to travel on the same train outbound and return. These tickets provide a 1/3 discount and do not require splitting the ticket or committing to a specific train. The return fare looks to be £32. If anyone is interested, I will plan to be at the ticket office by 10:10 AM.
Hi Karen, I'm planning on doing thus walk on Sunday. Will meet you at the ticket office. Heidi
Hi, I’d like to join as well. See you at the ticket office at 10.10. Jenni
I've always maintained that this was, pound for pound and travel time for travel time, one of the best walks on the site, with a massively different landscape just an hour from a London terminus. Well, pound for pound, it was even better today, because we will get most of the ticket price back through Delay Repay!
The train departed on time but stopped completely just after passing Ealing Broadway. Some time passed before we were told that a defective train ahead was blocking the line. As a non-expert, any of three things could happen next: somehow the defective train gets restarted, a loco conveniently located somewhere on this mega-important stretch of railway out of London tows the stricken train out of harm's way, or we reverse to a point where we can cross onto another line and divert past that stricken train. But for 45 minutes nothing at all happened.
Then we saw the driver walking through the train and soon-ish starting the journey back towards London, but not to a crossover point (there may not be any between Ealing and P'ton), but all the way back onto a platform at Paddington.
The following opening of the doors and re-doing of the dispatch process took some time and gave 3 SWCers in our carriage an excuse to de-train and go home, citing evening appointments and/or work prep pressures. There may have been others in other carriages, we will never know.
Me and the others in my carriage stoically persevered through this and several further delays, to finally arrive at Pewsey 1 3/4 hours behind schedule (some of us had had their picnic lunch on the train). The sun was shining but there was certainly a cold wind about.
I keep the rest short: route as glorious as ever; mud not an issue really; bluebells on the ridge: magnificent, especially in Withy Copse (punctuated with celandines and stitchwort) and in Gopher Wood (a blue carpet); wildlife: a hare and a heron; views: fantastic.
With the 105 minute delay to our start, we knew that catching the 19.01 train would be touch-and-go (and the one after was 3 hours later), so after passing the Chalk Horse Figure and Walkers Hill, we decided to cut across to the return route of the other Pewsey walk, which is shorter from there to town. That left enough time for a drink at The Waterfront Bar while watching the penalty shootout in the FA Cup Semi before comfortably catching the train (which was also delayed, of course, but only by 22 minutes).
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