Reading (Soutcote and Calcot)

Kennet & Avon Canal: Through Burghfield Bridge

Been feeling a bit below par this week, so our normal Sunday walk was chosen to be both undemanding and local. The walk begins on the edge of the residential suburb of Southcote at the car park for Southcote Linear Park, near to a set of allotments.

Although this is slightly unprepossessing start, you are soon walking along the side of the Holy Brook, which is narrow and a bit cluttered, but still quite attractive. We saw a large family of swans, with no less than seven nearly fully-grown cygnets (not all in shot).



You walk along the river bank for a while and then turn south under the railway and across some waste ground to join the river Kennet at the pretty Milkmaid's bridge - on the route of another Reading walk we did last year.

From here, you walk west along the river bank and eventually reach a weir where the river joins the Kennet and Avon canal. A short way along the tow path you come to Burghfield Bridge, with canal boats moored along the far bank.




... and then cross to the other bank. Further on you pass Burghfield Lock.



Soon there are delightful meadows to the side and a real sense of being in the country. At Hissey's bridge you turn right and very quickly walk through further meadows to reach the banks of the Holy Brook for the return leg.

Sadly, the route soon diverges from the river bank and goes via the former Calcot Mill into the Calcot housing development, latterly along a series of green spaces between the houses and the railway line. You meet the Holy Brook again just before the end.

From: Rambling for Pleasure: Around Reading first series by David Bounds for the East Berkshire Ramblers’ Association Group.

Distance: 4.5 miles.

Rating: three stars. Surprisingly good urban walk. Spoilt only by the final stretch.

Map: Explorer 159 (Reading, Wokingham & Pangbourne)

Flower of the day

Not many flowers about, but this White Mustard grew in profusion in the wasteland between stream and river.



Berries of the day

Some of the berries of autumn need no introduction: wild rose hips, holly, hawthorn, elder, rowan. However, recent walk in Priddy in Somerset resulted in us noticing the Wayfaring Tree, whose berries were at that stage red and would later ripen to black.

Today we saw these two.




The first turns out to be Spindle-tree (Euonymus europaeus). The pink fruits will later split to reveal orange seeds inside.

The second is a Guelder-rose (Viburnam opulus). The name comes from the Dutch province of Guelderland.