Aldworth & The Ridgeway

St Mary's church, Aldworth

For today's walk we headed to Aldworth, starting the walk at St Mary's church. It dates from the 14th century, with 19th century alterations. Its claim to fame is that houses nine stone effigies of members the de Beche family known as the "Aldworth Giants". Sadly, the church, like all others, is closed.

We headed up the track to the left of the church and were hailed by a cheery fellow heading towards us who gave us a mini lecture on the area.  We briefly joined a lane and then left it for a track heading towards the Ridgeway. Soon there was a wonderful view over a valley to the east.

A bit further on, it became clear that there were two parallel valleys separated by a hill and then coming together. They are shown on the map as Streatly Warren.

At the end of the track we turned right onto the Ridgeway. 

We walked the entire Ridgeway with our friends Merv and Pud between October 2013 and July 2015 and passed this way traveling east to west when we did the 8 mile stretch from Streatley to Bury Down.

We followed the track, heading downhill, and enjoying being on the Ridgeway again after such a long gap. As the path leveled out, a picturesque farm and some houses could be seen off to the right

After half a mile we turned right at a house called "Wynders". Strange name, but the house did have a lot of windows ... We headed south through fields passing the isolated Kiddington Cottage to climb up through woodland to reach the B4009. Here we turned right passing, but not really noticing, a pair of semi-detached house by Lutyens. (Only discovered when I looked in Pevsner to find out about the church.)

Then left across two fields to reach Aldworth and the celebrated Bell Inn. It is closed of course, but was formerly a celebrated real ale pub, and hopefully will be again.

Opposite is the old well, thought to be 372 feet deep.

A short walk along the road brought us back to the church.

New flowers of the day

We have been increasingly aware of the wildflowers we pass (partly because of the lack of butterflies) and while we can identify quite a lot we thought we would try to spot a few new ones on each walk. This lovely yellow one is Common Rock Rose

... and this is Common Mallow.

Conditions: hot and sunny.

From: Pub walks in Berkshire & Oxfordshire

Distance: 4.75 miles.

Map: Explorer 158 (Newbury & Hungerford) and 170 (Abingdon, Wantage and Vale of White Horse)

Rating: 4 stars.