Reading

Walk Details:
Date: 1/9/2004
Total ascent: 58m
Total distance walked: 3 miles
Walk difficulty: 1/10 from David's house, 0/10 by car
Enjoyment rating: 2/10
Best bits: Being our first county top; nice water tower; brief view; pub at summit
Worst bits: All road walking; entirely urban top; mocking children

The Walk:

Driving along the M4 after work, we could see Tilehurst Water Tower atop a hill to our right. My former "home" top was about to become the first of our County Tops, but we hadn't originally planned it that way. We had been determined that we finish our previous project (the LOOP) before starting the county tops (probably with the old London top of Hampstead Heath on the same day we finished the LOOP). But we got impatient…

We decided that as we had the final LOOP section planned into our schedule (11 September), we were definitely going to complete it, and therefore it was okay to go ahead and start the County Tops. Despite some reservations that this was an inherently weak argument, I had "itchy feet" (no, nothing to do with athlete's foot); it seemed a long time since I'd last walked.

My workmate Justin was joining us for this one; possibly for them all. We had to see whether he was as determined (read: mad) as us I, and up for the "challenge" of standing in a series of unremarkable places that happened to be the highest point of some obscure Unitary Authority. Reading top would be a perfect test of his commitment to a pointless crazy cause.

This top is potentially the easiest of all; a road runs right across it. We had decided, however, that in cases like these we'd try to park a little way away from the summit and do our best to actually climb to it. We therefore parked at our friend David's house in Calcot, a mile or so away and 58 metres lower than the "peak".

It has to be said, this mile was not the nicest walking territory; it was entirely urbanised. We'll skip the dullness of the initial stage through the Calcot housing estate, and head instead straight out to the busy and noisy A4. After walking alongside this for a while we came to the entrance to Calcot Golf Club. This is technically private land, but there's a road through it linking two groups of houses at the two entrances. We thought we could use this as a short cut away from the main road - it wouldn't do anyone any harm. Justin did not agree. He was scared that musically minded golfers might be tempted to perform a percussive rhythm upon our skulls with their nine irons. As we stood there debating the matter, a man drove up in a posh car and shouted at us for some time. We assume that was what he was doing anyway; his window was shut and he was completely inaudible. Though this was more laughable than anything else, we had been noticed and wereluctantly agreed to go round the road way instead.

After a bit of a trudge along the A4 we finally turned off up Langley Hill and finally began a proper ascent (we'd barely climbed 10 metres until now). Although it wasn't especially steep, it was a warm evening, I was unfit, and I found it slightly harder than I should have done. Near the top Langley Hill metamorphosed into Park Lane and we finally entered into Reading Unitary Authority. Until now we'd been in West Berkshire Unitary Authority - it strikes me that the boundaries need changing a bit round here, as half of Reading seems to lie outside its own Unitary Authority boundaries! We were pleased to find a pub with a beer garden there caled The Bear (if you're driving to the summit this would be a good place to park).

The "summit" was only a few dozen metres further on along the road, supposedly just outside the entrance to a particularly grand water tower. The road was now completely flat, and I could not see why the water tower bit was specified as the highest point rather than, say The Bear - I think that it's purely because it's such an impressive feature that it was accorded the honour.

We took photos of each other in front of the tower whilst the local kids pointed and laughed, and then returned to The Bear's beer garden for a celebratory pint (orange & lemonade in my case as I was driving and hot) and a packet of crisps. I also took the opportunity to ascend still higher by means of the children's two-storey play house in the garden and subsequently had trouble getting out again through the small doors (I must lose that weight…)

Darkness was now starting to descend. As we started to hotfoot it back down Langley Hill to our "base camp" at David's, a surprisingly decent view across the Thames Valley briefly opened out in front of us. Somehow, despite the road-walking and mocking children, it made this top worthwhile. At any rate, Justin's agreed to join us again for the next one…