Robust Rambles

Dymchurch to Didcot Robust Ramble

Section 46 Return

Goring (Streatley) to Woodcote

Walk Details
Map OS Explorer 171
Distance/Time 5 miles/ 2 hours
Start On the main road up from Goring Station, where the B4009 goes over a bridge over the railway and into Goring village centre and continues to the bridge over the River Thames to Streatley. On road parking in the local area, but needs to be searched out.
Comment Most of this return is along the Chiltern Way as no alternative is to be had. This makes the route easy to follow with frequent waymarking. Some excellent views midway.
Walk Instructions

From the crossroads at Goring railway bridge cross the main road and walk away from the railway down the rough side road opposite with houses on your right.

At the top, where the road swings right, turn left into a narrow enclosed path between fences to soon emerge onto a road. Cross and go straight ahead.

Keep on, through a housing estate, to the very top. Continue on an asphalt path with a tall fence on your left. In 10 metres turn right through a gap in the hedge and cross a rough drive to enter an enclosed footpath (this is the Chiltern Way and easy to follow).

At the end pass through a wooden kissing gate and enter a field, go on around the lower edge.

Leave the field through a wooden kissing gate and at a Y-fork, bear right into the end of a path by a garden fence. Keep on for ¼ mile, to emerge onto a road.

Cross, bearing right, and turn left off the road up an enclosed path between trees (and possibly chickens) alongside a private drive. Follow an easy path uphill through trees for ¼ mile, bearing left …..CHECK THIS….. to a T-junction at the top.

Do not turn left with the Chiltern Way but go straight across to wooden rails opposite and a footpath going straight ahead into a wood. This is a strange wood with a single dense ground cover of brambles. Forest management has cut clearings through the brambles which look like paths. However the footpath is well trodden and slightly muddy so stay with it as it wanders across to the far side. Be careful not to be tripped by wandering brambles.

Leave the wood onto a track (the Chiltern Way again) and turn right. The track becomes a road. Keep forward ignoring paths off right.

Where a wood begins on your right, turn left on a farm track down the edge of a field. At the bottom leave the farm track and bear left on a footpath up through trees. Keep going on a well-trodden path ignoring cross tracks.

Leave the wood through a wooden kissing gate and cross a pasture to a further wooden kissing gate. Turn right on a road. In 100 metres, turn left on a farm track into a field and follow it down the edge with a hedge on your right (excellent views here).

Keep on along the field edge ignoring three turnings into the wood. Eventually drop down to the very bottom corner of the field by farm buildings. Leave the field and turn right, up by a beech hedge, to pass farm buildings and a house.

Join the main drive (ignore another path into the wood), and follow this ½ mile uphill to a main road.

Turn right on the road (leaving the Chiltern Way) and walk along to a crossroads by a War Memorial.

Keep on a little further in the same direction to reach The Red Lion (also a shop beyond) in Woodcote, and the start of the section.