Royswi one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Royswi here.

I undertook this yesterday walking from Swindon to RWB, and it was an epic fail. As previous reviews. The walk is effectively three sections, Swindon to Mannington Rec Ground, comprising urban lit pavements, Mannington to end of Lydiard Park, tarmac and compacted gravel tracks, and the final section from Hook Road across generally awful fields to RWB. Section one id okay ( if you like that sort of thing )section two is fine, and Lydiard Park a great visit, but I failed miserably in section three. As it was May, I didn't encounter maize, but saw the remnants, which went right to the field boundary, but what I did encounter was VERY long grass, where the paths were not reinstated. I think I then missed a change in direction from one field to the next ( SU 08960 84446 ? ) and got to field end and met barbed wire.
Being thoroughly cheesed off with the very wet long grass, then barbed wire, I changed direction and completed the walk, as what will become Royswi two. I have generated a series of issues onto the Wilts MyWilts complaints app, and have also notified a local Ramblers colleague about the problems. Some time in the future I will endeavour to complete this section three coming from RWB, to see if it can sensibly be achieved.

Sadly this route is impassable due to overgrown paths, barbed wire, broken styles and planting across the footpath. Although we did get through we wouldn't recommend it for these reasons. We will have to create Royswi Two and come back and test it out.

As it is, this route is not walkable as drawn. This is because the path of overgrown in the fields to the north of the M4. While the crops growing of paths can easily be overcome by walking around the edge of the fields, the path has been totally taken over by overgrowth for 200 metres (parallel to Hook Street below Hook Farm). It was be fairly straight forward for the route to be walkable if these paths were cleared.

Other than these challenges, we enjoyed walking this route. Lydiard Park was an unexpected treat.

For now, another route is needed to connect Royal Wootton Bassett and Swindon.

I walked this route on May 2nd, 2021, from RWB to Swindon. The route begins on the shopping high street then continues out of town along pavements at the edges of roads.

The section between the edge of town, over the M4 to Lydiard could do with some improvements, as it tries to cross invisible rights of way that are badly signposted and in places not maintained by local landowners, I made several detours, unable to find the route on the ground. This section involves quite a number of stiles.

The Lydiard Park (and environs) crossing is lovely, and the rest of the route follows mostly cycle paths in Swindon, it could be improved in a few places (for example it crosses the busy Great Western Way above ground).

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