Pete's Walks- Goring, Hartslock, Cray's Pond (page 1 of 4)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
I did this circular walk of about 8.3 miles on Sunday, May 21st, 2017. It was a repeat of a walk I first did in May 2015, the aim of the walk being to allow me to visit the Hartslock nature reserve to see the rare orchids there.
I parked at the far end of Manor Road in Goring, where it deteriorates into a very rough and uneven track (Grid Reference: SU 801602) and started walking at about 11.35am. I followed the track, which ran between hedges with fields either side - after a few hundred yards it turned left and then turned right alongside a railway embankment. It then turned left to got under a railway bridge, and continued straight on to reach the buildings at Gatehampton Manor. Here the right of way turned left along a drive, and soon came to a T-junction with a bridleway, where I turned right. After passing Kingfisher cottage on my right, the bridleway continued for several hundred yards between fences and then hedges, with the Thames somewhere over to my right and steep hills on my left.
The start of the track continuing from the end of Manor Road, Goring, to Gatehampton Manor
The track to Gatehampton Manor
Approaching Gatehampton Manor
The bridleway from Gatehampton Manor
The bridleway approaching the Hartslock nature reserve
On reaching a wood, I immediately turned left on to a footpath, that climbed a steep scrub-covered slope, following a fence and hedge on my right. There was a group of walkers at the top of the slope, I'd already seen or passed a few others and I was obviously on the route of some organised walk. I then followed the same fence and hedge downhill a little way and went through a pedestrian gate in the fence and spent a few minutes exploring the very steep Hartslock nature reserve, where I saw a Lady Orchid, Monkey Orchids and the hybrid of the two.
The steep footpath through the Hartslock nature reserve (note the crowd of walkers at the top of the slope)
View back towards Goring from the highest point of the footpath through the Hartslock nature reserve (the river is the Thames, separating Oxfordshire from Berkshire)
View back towards Goring from the higher section of the Hartslock nature reserve
I then returned to the same gate, and went downhill to my right, to a field gate where I turned right onto a byway (or, to be strictly accurate, an 'Other route used for public access') - the people on the organised walk went a different way at this point. The byway ran eastwards, initially between tall hedges and then through a belt of trees, all the time gradually going uphill.
The byway from the nature reserve, heading east
The byway from the nature reserve, heading east
The byway from the nature reserve, heading east
The byway from the nature reserve, heading east