Liddington to Overton Hill

It was another hot day and a long walk but we made it! The walk, especially the first part, was rather more interesting than I’d expected and, as yesterday, there were Neolithic remains to entertain us.

Jane Howes provided delicious American-style blueberry pancakes for breakfast and we left Meadowbank House around 9am and walked back to where we had left The Ridgeway on the B4192. We climbed up towards Liddington Castle (another ancient hill fort) but the path veered to the left before the castle itself. There followed a delightful section, with views to the Lambourn Downs to our left and down to the Roman Road north of Ogbourne St George to our right. Jane and Matthew at Meadowbank House had, just yesterday, bought a picture for the room we were staying in, and this showed an undulating ploughed landscape – I think we walked right through this landscape today!

We entered woods and there was a bench (all too rare on The Ridgeway) but someone was else was sitting on it. The path became an attractive wooded lane. There was a walkers’ route alongside for part of it, but it looked rather overgrown. We stopped on a grassy verge where another track crossed ours (near the site of the medieval village of Snap). The wooded track continued for a while, then we emerged onto a road for a short section near ‘Round Hill Downs’ and for a while after this the track was more open, so less pleasant walking in the heat.

Just past Hallam we took a footpath to the right of the track because this led to a field with shade – an excellent spot for lunch. We ate our own supplies, that Jane at Meadowbank House had kindly supplemented. We completed the loop around Ogbourne St George with another very brief section on a road, then took a track to our left towards Barbury Castle. I’d worried about the climb here, given the heat, especially when I realised that there was very little shelter. However it was actually a delightful gentle climb across Coombe Down and beyond to Upper Herdswick Farm.

We had been half-hoping for an ice-cream van at each car park we’d passed for the past two days, and the car park at Barbury Castle Country Park was the last realistic chance. But of ice-cream there was none! There are however, toilets, picnic benches and a good view. We chose to sit on the grass in the shade of a tree. The path then continued straight through the middle of the hill fort of Barbury Castle, an attractive place.

To our north there were views to Wroughton Airfield (now a store for large objects not on display at the Science Museum), with Swindon beyond. So far today, we had headed south to Ogbourne St George, then north-west to Barbury Castle, so as the crow flies we had not covered a tremendous distance. The remaining 6 miles put that right by heading south. We were mostly back on a hard and sometimes rutted path and there wasn’t a great deal of shade, so we stopped just about whenever shade was available. Don’t believe the map that there is woodland by the path just south of Barbury Castle - it has been replanted, but the trees are small and some distance from the path, with gallops nearer to the path. There was a nice little copse just further along on the right and another just before the car park above the white horse.

There were good views, in particular to our right (we were walking on top of the ridge) and Avebury came into view with what I think was the Cherhill Monument visible in the distance beyond. The countryside is lovely – I’m looking forward to continuing to explore Wiltshire on the Wessex Ridgeway. As we approached Overton Hill we began to see sarsen stones (isolated sandstone boulders) also known as ‘grey wethers’, because they look a bit like sheep (‘wether’ is an old word for ‘sheep’).

Then suddenly there we were at the end of the Ridgeway National Trail, in a car park by the A4, with information boards and the first of the ‘No access to motor vehicles’ signs. It had been a lovely walk. A man had been standing in the car park and we’d wondered if he’d photograph the two of us together, but he had left by the time we got there and a couple who had wandered in the direction of the start of the Ridgeway wandered back across the road.

When we got back to The Old Forge and complained about the misleading information we were given a carton of orange juice and told about the outdoor seating area down by the river - this was lovely, a fitting end to the walk.