Eversley

New Mill ford

A lovely sunny afternoon and a new relatively local walk. This 5.5 mile walk begins near Bramshill, at the edge of Bramshill Forest.

You walk initially along a forest track, rich in butterflies, with St Neot's school playing fields on the right. You emerge onto a residential street and reach the river Blackwater at New Mill ford. Turning off just before the ford, you follow the line of the river through a series of meadows to reach Eversley. Unfortunately, the river itself is largely invisible.

Along the main road and past the entrance to Warbrook House, now a conference centre. Part of the refurbishment has been to open up the vista from and to this lovely house. Pevsner tells us that it was built in 1724 by the architect John James for himself and describes it as "impressive" and "remarkably individual".



A lane and fields now lead to Eversley church and the section of the walk from there back into Bramshill Forest is one I had already done as part of the Three Castles Path (reviewed here). However, on reaching a large cross roads, our route goes off to the right along the Welsh Drive, which apparently is a remnant of the traditional route which Welsh cattle drovers took to London.

The Drive is a pleasant winding track, which gets progressively narrower until it reaches a junction where you turn right to return to the start. The Forest is surprisingly quiet and lifeless - hardly a bird to be heard, let alone seen, and no butterflies even in the clearings.

From: Blackwater Valley circular walks (Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership.

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

Rating: three and half stars. The walk is an offshoot of the Blackwater Valley Path, but the section along the Path is sensibly in the reverse direction to the recommended one for the Path itself.


Sightings

A very good selection of butterflies: lots of small skippers, meadow browns and commas, the latter intensely coloured. A few large whites, a speckled wood, a red admiral and a painted lady (so common this year).

At one point, the route passed a duck pond with a couple of statues of herons - it was excellent to then see a real heron land and quickly depart, possibly in disappointment. Later I saw a Greater Spotted woodpecker and a couple of yellow wagtails.


Flower of the day

The sides of the butterfly path at the start of the walk had a profusion of this Tormentil.