11.4 miles 17.5km (swc version) or 9.6 miles 15.45km. (YHA version). Difficulty 6/10
A walk in the downland above Goring. There's scenery and stuff - plus, you get to visit one of Mr Tiger’s favourite pubs. There's a choice of two slightly different routes.. Both have similar mornings but the YHA version, a hand-drawn map, has a shorter afternoon. Both versions converge for a steep up and down near the end.
Trains
Get a return to “Goring & Streatley”.
Simplest journey: Get the 09:28 Didcot Parkway train from Paddington (Ealing Broadway 9:37) arriving “Goring & Streatley” 10:38.
Fastest journey: Get the 9:43 Didcot Parkway train and change onto the above Didcot PW train at Reading (arrive 10:12 platform 9, depart 10:26 platform 13)
Freedom Pass holders: A Freedom Pass is valid as far as Reading on the even slower Tfl
service (Paddington 9:13, Ealing Broadway 9:21). Arrive Reading 10:13
and, get the same 10:26 Didcot Parkway train. You need a ticket for the
rest of the journey.
Return from Goring at xx:00. Change again at Reading for faster or Tfl services
Lunch
Your lunch stop, the Bell in Aldworth, has been in the same family for 250 years. It was CAMRA’s 2020 Pub of the Year. Just simple fare here, like rolls, soups and ploughmans. The well opposite is said to be the deepest in England. It's well deep. Aldworth’s church is home to the Aldworth Giants, memorials to an ancient ancestral family. They’re not looking their best after a ravaging by Roundheads, but they’ll be pleased to meet you.
Tea
Returning through Streatley, you pass the Bull, then the up-market Swan at Streatley (probably the best for tea). Over the river, you've got the Miller of Mansfield, the Catherine Wheel (Station Road, probably the best for beer) and the John Barleycorn. (The Queen’s Arms, still mentioned in the walk notes, is now a Tesco).
Directions:
Walk info here. The SWC Walk is on the “Download Walk”. button
The map walk is on the "YHA Goring via Aldworth" button. Anti-clockwise is suggested to tie in with the SWC walk.
The details below link the station to the YHA walk
From the station: head right (Red Cross Road) for the High Street then turn left downhill. Cross the river and pass the Swan pub. Here you have a choice of 2 anti-clockwise starts, both depicted on the map.
• For the gentlest route, turn right about 45m after the Swan, following a sign for the Thames Path. Then follow the map route. (This is similar to the SWC start).
• The second choice involves a steep climb with a view at the top. Pass the Swan pub and continue ahead across the A329 onto a lane to turn right shortly afterwards, onto the map route.
Returning to the station, turn left along the A329 to the crossroads, cross the A road, then the river, head uphill on the High Street and turn right for the station after crossing the rail bridge.
t=swc.17
2 comments:
Added the gpx for the YHA afternoon route if you fancy a shortcut on the way back. The Queens Arms (one of the tea pubs) is closed.
N=10 on a day that w=started-sunny-clouded-later Dry underfoot. The Bell was a hit. We sat in the garden. Some ate, some drank. Almost t-shirt weather till the clouds came over. A quick look at the giants and we were off, 3 taking the YHA route, the rest the longer SWC one. The hill near the end hasn’t got any lower and the steep slope down any less steeper.. Not that it bothered me. I just skipped along like a mountain goat. Free as a bird. The 3 YHAers got to Goring first and paid a visit to the Catherine Wheel which was OK but wasn’t the Bell. One SWCer joined us. The others caught us up on the way to the station. I think they might have looked in the Swan.
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