Goring Heath (Nuney Green and Path Hill)

Path Hill

For our last walk of a busy year of walking we decided to revisit one we last did in 2004. The walk begins at the King Charles's Head just outside the village of Goring Heath. We immediately noticed a change: the pub has now been converted, very successfully by the look of it, into a private house. Perhaps not private enough though as the house is right on the road.

A few yards up the road towards Goring Heath you turn into Gutteridges Wood, a very pleasant woodland - and the first photo opportunity for my new camera.


You skirt the hamlet of Nuney Green and go through further woodland to emerge at the surprising and wonderful Allnutts Hospital, almshouses founded in 1724 by Henry Allnutt.



The central building, under its cupola, is the small, plain chapel.



You then pass the edge of Goring Heath and follow a series of paths to reach Path Hill, on one side of a pretty valley. After two more stretches of woodland (Bottom Wood and Coxsetters Wood) you regain the starting point.

From: Rambling for Pleasure around Reading (second series) by David Bounds for the East Berkshire Ramblers Association.

Map: Explorer 159 (Reading, Wokingham and Pangbourne).

Conditions: blue sky, some cloud, very cold, ground frozen.

Distance: 4 miles.

Rating: Three and half stars stars. Very nice woodland; the almshouses are a delight.