Egham Circular
1 November. The highlight was the wonderful autumn colours of the trees. We started from Egham station with 14 people. After walking along a path past allotments and sturdy ponies grazing in fields, we went through a variety of environments – woods, scrub and bushes, and short sections on pavements.
After crossing the busy A30, we entered Windsor Great Park along a path covered in leaves with the sun shining through the trees which formed a guard of honour for us.
We then had a long and varied walk along the side of Virginia Water, with some beautiful views across the lake.
We reached the Cascade, a man-made waterfall, which was looking particularly pretty in the sunlight.
After walking further along the side of Virginia Water, we turned into woods until we reached the lunch stop. After eating their sandwiches, the picnickers joined the rest of the group eating in the Belvedere Arms, where the food was excellent.
After lunch, four walkers took advantage of the first dropout option by walking to Sunningdale station. That left ten of us who re-entered Windsor Great Park at Blacknest Gate. We crossed a bridge over Virginia Water to the other side of the lake.
After crossing another bridge, we entered Valley Gardens. Here we came across many salix alba ‘Britzensis’, a coppiced cultivar of the willow tree, with striking gold/red shoots.
Shortly after, we saw a tall obelisk dedicated to the Duke of Cumberland, who led the creation of Windsor Great Park over 200 years ago and who is known as “the butcher of Culloden” because he ordered his English soldiers to kill the wounded Scottish soldiers they had captured.
Our luck with the weather ran out and we hurriedly put on our waterproofs as we were caught in a short but heavy shower of rain. We exited Windsor Great Park near the Saville Garden, walking along a narrow lane until we turned off to head to fields & woods. The rain had stopped and a rainbow emerged.
After some road walking, six of our group took a dropout option of pavement walking down to Egham station. The remaining four of us carried on to visit the Air Forces Memorial.
The memorial is very fine and lists the 20,000 allied air forces men and women who were lost in the Second World War and who have no known graves. They came from the UK, all over the Commonwealth and those continental European countries which had been overrun by the Nazis. The memorial is in the shape of a tranquil cloister. The far end has extensive views above Runnymede with Heathrow visible to the right.
Then there was a half mile gradual descent on a rough track, where we had to be careful as the rain had made it slippy. Finally, a short walk along the pavement took us to Egham station where we arrived shortly before 4pm.
Terry, with thanks to Sigrid for additional photo
