THE WALK
Distance: 6.5 miles
Grid reference at start: SU475677
Time: 2-3 hours
Going: Easy
Parking: Car park in centre of Newbury and find a suitable place in Chieveley as there is no designated car park.
BBC BERKSHIRE WALKING AND SAFETY |  |
Start at Victoria Park in Newbury (you can park in the car park opposite it). Follow the path through the park that brings you out onto Park Lane. This takes you out onto a busy main road, where you need to take the underpass straight ahead. Turn left out of the underpass, onto the path with the Harvester restaurant on your right. Cross the road using the pedestrian crossing, and follow the road straight ahead. You'll see that the path straight ahead deviates away from the road to the right, and is fenced off.  | | This is the first bit of open countryside you'll cross as you leave Newbury |
Follow this path, away from the main road. This path takes you past Shaw Park on the left, and woodland on the right. Leave the path by a metal gate, crossing the River Lambourn over a bridge. Follow the path to a T-junction where you'll see a school straight ahead. Turn right. Just after the sign saying cyclists dismount, turn left up the footpath. Where the footpath comes out onto Love Lane, turn right. Walk down Love Lane to meet the B4009. Turn left towards Hermitage. Once you're alongside the cemetry on your right, take the road half left through the housing estate. Take the track to the left of the sign for Highwood Close. Keep on the track, past Highwood Farm, keeping the farm house on your left. Pass underneath the powerline, and continue through a wooden gate. Keep going along with the field boundary to your left and pass through another wooden gate. The footpath leaves the field boundary and crosses the middle of the field. As you go over a slight rise you'll see a Red Farm on your left. The path comes out on an asphalt road, cross this and continue following the footpath straight ahead.  | | The landscape was just changing from summer to autumn as we walked this route |
The path here doesn't follow the field boundary but goes through the middle of the field, heading towards the left hand end of the trees ahead. Leave the field through the metal gate. The path follows the field edge on the right side, but then leaves the boudary and heads towards the wooden gate. Keep on following the field boundary and leave this field through another wooden gate. As you reach the gate, you can see the roofs of Grange Farm to your right. Still following the field boundary on your right, pass through another wooden gate. After passing through the gate, there is scrub land on your left and a field on your right. Just after you pass a corrugated farm building on your right, take a footpath on the left, crossing a stile.  | | You'll pass through lots of exposed, open farmland |
Continue following the path through the woods, over another stile. The footpath comes out on Curridge Road, where you turn left. Pass Oaklands estate on the right. Keep following the lane, and it'll take you over the A34 on a roadbridge. Turn right after you've crossed the bridge, and then immediately turn left into Arlington Lane, following the sign for Winterborne. You'll pass the Mary Hare School on your left. Go up the hill, and take the road off to the right (which says no through road). Follow this road passing Snelsmore barn. Don't follow the footpath straight ahead, but turn left onto the asphalt road. Passing a pond on your left and Snelsmore Farm on your right.  | | This walk is quite a long one - so pace yourself! |
Stay on this road, passing a stone sign saying Kites Abbey. Keep following the footpath into the woods. As you approach the motorway, you'll see a bridleway to the left. Take this, and you'll walk parallel to the M4. You'll reach a path on the right, that turns back sharply, almost going back the way you have just walked. Take this path. This takes you across the M4 on a footbridge. Follow the bridleway right, onto the field boundary. As you cross the field, towards Church farm, you can see Chieveley ahead of you. When you reach the road turn right and when you reach the main road turn left, taking you into the centre of Chieveley. You've completed Part Five of the Berkshire Way Well Done! Berkshire Way Part Six | 
