A walk in the downland above Goring. The last posting was thwarted by cancelled trains so you’re getting it again. Visits Aldworth for lunch. After a choice of two afternoon routes, there's a climb and descent into Streatley.
Trains
🕘🕗Clocks go forward today, Don’t sleep in.🕘🕘
Get the Didcot Parkway train from Paddington at 9:38 Platform 4, arriving Goring & Streatley station 10:37
For a slightly later start, get the 09:46 Hereford train from Paddington changing at Reading onto the Didcot train above, (platform 15 departing 10:25). Freedom Pass Holders can travel free as far as Reading on the Elizabeth Line. (Bond St .9:10, Paddington 9:15 Ealing Broadway.9:26 arrives Reading 10:10). Change onto the 10:25 Didcot train.
Return trains leave xx:22, change again at Reading if required.
Lunch
Your lunch stop is the Bell in Aldworth – a pub that has been in the same family for 250 years. Don’t expect nothing fancy – just rolls, ploughmans and the like. It has won several CAMRA awards, so expect the beer to be good. The church there is home to the Aldworth giants. They’re a bit worse for wear since some Roundheads had a pop at them, but still worth a look.
Tea
You pass two pubs in Streatley, the Bull, then the Swan at Streatley. There's a teashop just after the bridge but it closes early. Back in Goring, the Catherine Wheel on Station Road is suggested. You’ve also got the Miller of Mansfield, on the High Street.
Directions
Walk info here . The main SWC walk, on the "Download Walk" button, is suggested for the morning.
In the afternoon, you could follow the hand-drawn map on the "YHA Goring via Aldworth" button. This is shorter, following quiet roads for most of the way and avoiding a potentially muddy part of the SWC route. (This option isn't described in the text. but is shown on the gps). The two routes converge for the climb back up to the downs. Revert to the SWC route for the station. t=swc.17
1 comment:
The specified train started not from Paddington as scheduled, but from Reading, requiring resort to other services to get the starting point. Eventually #7 frequent walkers emerged at Goring, to an #overcast_and_cold_morning_leading_to_light_rain_in the_afternoon.
The Bell at Aldworth was predictably so full that its soup and rolls were consumed outside. The resulting hypothermia led the group to agree to take the published short cut, which in the end we slightly elongated.
That got us back to Goring station for a 1522 train that returned to London uneventfully. Another stalwart was waiting for the same train; she had travelled separately, got as far as a mill in Goring that was having some kind of sale, and returned laden with stock for starting the bookshop that she has long wanted to run. I don't think that counts as 8.
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