Spencers Wood

This walk begins in the centre of Spencers Wood, on the Basingstoke Road. You walk through a housing development and and along a track to emerge on Hyde End Road. From here, Sussex Road leads to open fields and you follow the path as it leads through a farm to emerge on the Basingstoke Road again by the Mill House hotel.

Almost opposite is the delightful patterned brick Island House, which has been done up in recent times.


A closer look reveals that the french doors on the left are a recent - unsympathetic - insertion, while the upstairs windows are modern double glazing units, with too many glazing bars to match the downstairs right window. What a shame.

Now you cross the road and walk through fields parallel to the immature River Loddon. Soon you come to a lovely copse.


Now you walk along a lane towards the busy A33 and cross via an underpass. On the other side, you turn left beside a copse which has visible signs of a one-time moat and may once have been the location of a castle.

You now pass through Priory Farm and walk along its drive to turn right into Wood Lane to enter Beech Hill coverts. Emerging from this pleasant area of woodland, you cross the road to Beech Hill and follow another lane past an area of mobile homes into more woodland.

Finally, you cross the field known locally as "the common" to return to Spencers Wood.

From: Rambling for pleasure around Reading (first series) by David Bounds for the East Berkshire Ramblers.

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

Conditions: cool with a threat of rain.

Distance: 5 miles.

Rating: Three stars. A bit nondescript, but has the great advantage of being one of the few walks we can start on foot.


Flower of the day

This ground ivy had a pleasing shade of blue.