Some 10,000 people joined the 1958 rally march to Aldermaston

Marchers spent Friday night in a Sikh temple in Southall before setting off for Slough, Berkshire, on Saturday.

The protest, which revives a peace movement which began in 1958, started in London's Trafalgar Square.

Aldermaston's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) provides warheads for the UK's nuclear deterrent.

Campaigners fear "the next generation of nuclear weapons" are to be researched and tested there.

A spokeswoman for CND told BBC News Online: "There's been a really great reaction from the public. They have been cheering us on. Last night we slept in a temple and tonight we'll be staying in church halls."

She said 400 marchers were registered and numbers were expected to swell to 600 on Easter Monday as the march reached Aldermaston.

On Saturday marchers were back on the road at 1000 BST accompanied by a Samba band and were due to hear a speech by CND vice president Bruce Kent in Uxbridge.

Speaking at the opening rally at Trafalgar Square on Friday, Mr Kent said: "This event is to wake up a sleeping population that is unaware of the dangers of nuclear weapons."

Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn, also speaking at the rally, said: "Fifty-nine years ago Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the most terrifying weapons ever devised and tens of thousands were killed."

In 1958, 15,000 attended the first CND march to mark its birth and an estimated one million took to the streets during last year's Stop the War marches.

Before the rally, CND chairwoman Kate Hudson said the supposed Aldermaston programme highlighted Britain's "nuclear hypocrisy", in claiming to want to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction at the same time as developing new ones.

She said: "The development of a new generation of UK nuclear weapons risks escalating the drive for other countries to develop their own WMD rather than encouraging them to disarm deadly weapons."

Marchers set off on Good Friday and expect to arrive on Easter Monday

Thames Valley Police predicted "congestion and disruption" along the march route and criticised organisers for not working more closely with them.

People living in Slough, Maidenhead, Reading and Oxford could be affected.

Supt Jim Trotman, area commander for west Berkshire, said the organisers had not sought the correct road closure orders for the route, which could put the safety of marchers and road users at risk.