Description
Not sure of your navigation ability but like the idea of a pub walk, then this is the walk for you. The route is stress-free, with a large chunk in the middle simply involving backtracking your earlier footsteps, and the pub is a delight. The unpretentious, rustic, and cosy Plough Inn welcomes dogs and families around the log fire in winter and in their spacious garden in summer. The village name, Little London, continues to puzzle people. One suggestion is that the name was coined by settlers who escaped the plague in London in the 1600s. Either way, the village’s pub makes for a fabulous walk destination across countryside teaming with raptors overhead, scanning for their next meal. How many Red Kite will you see on your walk?
Walk Instructions
- From the station walk in the direction of the Bramley Inn. Cross over to the playing field and walk along the path parallel to the main road. The path bends right behind the hall, passes a small playground, and goes into a car park before reaching the road. Cross over and walk up the road on the pavement.
- At the National Grid sign turn left and walk along the lane until you can go no further. Turn right onto a path into the wood. This ancient woodland circumnavigates the sub-station within. Ignore a wooden post indicating a footpath off right and continue until the path divides offering a choice of bridges ahead. Take the left one out into a field. At the end of the field cross the stile and turn left at the road. This is Ash Lane.
- At the junction with Frog Lane (opposite a red brick house) turn right. After a short distance go through a metal kissing gate on the left. The path continues diagonally to the right and then along the left-hand edge of the field. Go over a bridge into the next field and continue along the field edge to a stile.
- Don’t cross the stile, instead turn right, and follow the hedge/field edge over another 1 or 2 stiles depending on whether gates are open/closed, until reaching a concrete farm track.
- Just after an equestrian arena take the small wooden gate on the right into a paddock. In the next field look for the large, new 5 bar gate in the middle of the opposite hedge, then head to the top, left corner of the next field to find the stile into the copse behind.
- Exit the copse into a field and walk diagonally across to the right of the houses that are visible on the left. The road can be reached through a gap in the deep hedge. Cross the road carefully to reach the pub on the left.
- To return to Bramley retrace steps 6 to 3 above. At the Ash and Frog Lane junction turn right. Within approx 100m you will pass two thatched cottages. After the second (on the right) turn left onto a good, raised footpath across the fields. After going under the electricity pylons, the footpath descends to the fields on the right and follows their left-hand edge all the way to the road.
- Turn left at the road. There is no pavement on this section, but the next footpath sign is less than 150m away. Stay on the left otherwise you will need to cross on a bend. Follow the footpath sign on the left towards a house and bend around to the right. At a T junction of paths it is worth taking a slight deviation to the right to visit the frescoes in the church. Dedicated to St James it is part of the Camino Ingles pilgrim route from Reading to Southampton.
- After visiting the church, return to T the junction mentioned above. Walk slightly past where you joined from the left earlier. The onward route is along the edge of the field/hedge on your right. This will bring you to the main road. Cross over and follow the pavement all the way back to the station.
Useful Link
he Plough Inn, Little London. Bookings advised. Tel: 01256 850628
Start and End
Bramley Station
Distance
6 miles
Time
2 hours 30 walking time plus break at the pub
Grade
2/10 – very flat
Accessibility
Not push/wheelchair accessible
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