Newbkin three

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Newbury to Kingsclere (Newbkin 3) review.

A walk from Newbury in Berkshire across into Hampshire; taking in Greenham Common, fields and woodland to arrive at Kingscleve on the edge of the North Wessex Downs.

There is some urban walking out of Newbury via an underpass and alongside Stroud Green.

Greenham Common had a request to keep to the main paths during nesting season (Photo 1). I was therefore unable to follow the exact route across the extensive parkland. I headed for the turfed bunkers (SF fans might recognise the Resistance base from ‘The Last Jedi’) and turned left (Photo 2).

The route crosses the A339 and the River Enborne county border. A footpath leads into the wooded Sydmonton Common. In an update to a previous review, there is now a fancy new bridge (Photo 3).

The Slow Way crosses a field at North Sydmonton and turns south down Hyde Lane. The lane was muddy in places even during a heat wave (June 2022). The route leaves the lane for footpaths across fields to eventually join the Brenda Parker Way (a long-distance path across Hampshire, Photo 4).

The route soon leaves the Way for a more direct path into Kingsclere (Photo 5). The Slow Ways ends in the centre of Kingsclere; with nearby convenience stores, a café, and the welcoming Crown pub (Photo 6).

I enjoyed this relaxing Slow Way. It didn’t have the panoramic views one gets from up in the surrounding North Wessex Downs, but its wooded sections did provide welcome shade during the height of summer.

Walked from Newbury to Kingsclere:
The route out of Newbury starts with a short section alongside the busy A339 before turning left to follow the footpath alongside Stroud Green and the quiet residential New Road. The road leads to a pedestrian walkway to emerge in Greenham. The route crosses the road to continue across Greenham Common on mainly gravel tracks popular with walkers, runners, and cyclists. On exiting the Common there is a small section of road to follow (no pavement) to reach the path across Sydmonton Common.
From here to Kingsclere the route then follows a mixture of paths across open fields, woodland trails, meadows, field boundaries and has some on-road sections. There are several stiles and wooden bridges along the way. Walked in July the vegetation was quite high in places (teeming with butterflies!) and the path across a couple of fields indistinct but the GPS track appeared accurate and agreed with the waymarkers. The on-road sections seemed to be very quiet back roads (we only encountered two cars) with no shops or facilities.

At the time of writing, July 2021, there was a ‘Path Closed’ sign on entry to Sydmonton Common (at approx. 5k) apparently for repairs to the footbridge. There was no sign of any maintenance work in progress and we found the bridge (photo #8) to be passable. However, Hampshire CC’s website currently shows the path due to be temporarily closed 28.07.2021 to 28.07.2022 so check the latest status if you are planning to walk this route - https://maps.hants.gov.uk/rightsofwaydefinitivemap/.

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