COVID 19
Track-and-Trace: please provide email address or mobile phone number at the start
Rule of Six: from start to finish please, and up to May 16
Length:
26.8 km (16.7 mi) [shortcuts possible, see below] Ascent/Descent:
382 m
Net
Walking Time: ca. 6 hours
Toughness:
7 out of 10
Outside
of the Network Southeast, and without lunch pubs. But the scenery…!
There
are fine areas of bluebells, but the blue beasties are NOT the main attraction
of this walk.
Take
the 10.35 Exeter St. David’s train from Paddington (11.01 Reading,
11.16 Newbury), arriving Pewsey at 11.34.
Return trains: 17.06
(63 mins, stops Newbury and Reading), 19.23 (64 mins, stops Newbury
and Reading) or 20.44 (58 mins, stops Reading only)
Buy
a Pewsey return (the
full undiscounted off-peak price is £42.60, but it’s of course cheaper
with Railcards, and in any case cheaper if you buy separate return
tickets London-Newbury and Newbury-Pewsey, or – if travelling back on the 20.44
train – London-Reading and Reading-Pewsey). !!
For example, if you are using a Network Railcard, you buy a discounted
London-Newbury return and a separate off-peak Newbury-Pewsey return (and travel
back on the trains that DO stop at Newbury).
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), 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
3 comments:
I can't find your train.....
Neither can I. Thanks for the headsup.
GWR seem to have 'thinned out' the timetable, with a few days to go (no wonder their trains are 'full' if they run only a skeleton schedule, and with shorter units as well, as they did yesterday on the Hanborough walk).
Their 'Amended Timetable' valid 12 April - 15 May, available on gwr.com, shows all the trains that should run and were still showing as running when I posted this walk. But we are now seemingly left with the 08.35 departure and the earliest return being the 19.23, which is way too much time in Pewsey for doing the walk, so I will have to cancel and post a new one. C'est la vie...
Message to the webmaster: following the link on the walk's webpage to the National Rail schedule still shows the train as running (plus plenty of others that are actually not now running...
In a final (?) irony, Journey Planner today is showing more trains to and from Pewsey on Saturday. Not the 10.35, but an 11.03. But one can't reserve a ticket on it. Could play the system by going to Reading 10 minutes earlier (bookable) and boarding the train there (bookable), but this is now officially getting too complicated. Probably best to avoid GWR trains for the time being. They seem to be in a right mess.
New walk post coming up shortly...
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