Great Western Coffee Shop

Today I resumed my pre-Covid custom of taking a train down from Tilehurst to another local station, have a walk, then return by train. (I think that I did one such trip in the summer of 2020, but most of last year, IIRC, the services were only hourly.) I planned to take the 0857, for which one can have an off-peak ticket, but at 0842 the machine only offered peak fares, a problem I recall occurred 10 or 12 years ago. And did I really see a fare of some £21 quoted for a first-class return to Goring, when,I think, hardly any trains serving the route have first-class seats?

So I popped into the ticket-office, where the pleasant lady advised that I "needed to go into the machine" - that is, bring up a specific menu. I didn't have the patience, so bought one from her.

At 0855 both "stopping" platforms had far fewer customers than in days of yore, and there were very few passengers on the train. After a six-hour-plus walk, I arrived at Pangbourne for the 1552, where passenger numbers, such as they were, seemed much as pre-2020.

The car-park at Tilehurst was barely half-full, that at Pangbourne seven-eights full.

Incidentally, at Tilehurst I could see no sign of the plants that Ernie, the popular ticket-man of a few years ago, had planted in his own time, having obtained them from some FGW fund for such embellishments.

And there were no Metros at any of the stations, a sign at Pangbourne advising that there was a supplier problem.

Now I have to calculate whether it's worthwhile getting a new Senior Railcard. I can't see my making anything more than very local trips, whereas throughout the 2010s I was visiting London a couple of times a month.

I was surprised when I checked my “little list” to find I have made 17 recreational rail journeys since March 2020 – I thought it was a lot less than that.

Some of those were to see family in Gloucester and Cheltenham, and one when I went to Gloucester just for the hell of it and bumped in to a relation on the other side of the bus station, so I’m not sure if that one counts as “family” or not!

Whether or not you decide to get a Senior Railcard is of course your own decision, but if you are only thinking of very local trips that is of course itself rather limiting. There are plenty of interesting places to walk a bit further away than the immediate vicinity.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you spend more than £90.00 on rail fares in a year, a £30 Railcard starts to pay for itself. £90.00 won’t buy that many rail trips nowadays!

If you shop at Tesco and have their clubcard, you can obtain a railcard for just £10 worth of vouchers. I have just bought two railcards using that scheme. Other supermarkets may have similar schemes in place.

[quote author=Robin Summerhill link=topic=26078.msg319031#msg319031 date=1645643110...
Whether or not you decide to get a Senior Railcard is of course your own decision, but if you are only thinking of very local trips that is of course itself rather limiting. There are plenty of interesting places to walk a bit further away than the immediate vicinity.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you spend more than £90.00 on rail fares in a year, a £30 Railcard starts to pay for itself. £90.00 won’t buy that many rail trips nowadays!

[/quote]

Currently my feeling is that it won't be worth my while buying a new Senior Railcard.

The time of year is fast approaching when I shall be driving further afield, into Hampshire and Wiltshire for walks. Ironically my intention yesterday was to walk on familiar routes from more than two years ago, but in the woods east of Goring I took a new route and during the day went along various footpaths for the very first time. Near Cane End, I noticed what appeared to be the remains of a military road and on returning home and Googling, I discovered  that it had been part of RAF Woodcote, which I thought I had researched several years ago. But there was fresh information, and also more (including a plan) on the late 1940s Polish resettlement camp near Checkendon.

There's always more to be discovered!

(Talking of which, today an Ukrainian friend visited, obviously with lots on her mind. She wanted a takeaway and ordered one from a Turkish restaurant in School Road, Tilehurst. Despite having lived nearby for almost 50 years, I couldn't place it, entailing our walking along the road and the realisation that she could have parked far closer than I had advised ...)

, more formally No 70 MU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Air_Force_Maintenance_units (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Air_Force_Maintenance_units). Presumably the reference from that is what you found. You can see some brickwork from the Reading - Oxford road. I imagine there was possibly more when I explored the woods 40 odd years ago.

I believe the Polish resettlement camp survived through to the 1950s. Interesting area, you might be interested in https://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/threads/kennylands-camp-bishopswood-camp-sonning-common.11858/ (https://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/threads/kennylands-camp-bishopswood-camp-sonning-common.11858/)

Hey Sid, that's a great link with lots of useful info and pics. Thanks! It will all be a great help when I do more exploring in the weeks ahead.

In the summer of 2020 I wrote a 600-word article for Upstream, the quarterly newsletter of the West Berkshire Countryside Society, about sites where environmental volunteers worked, including Bucklebury and Snelsmore Commons, which had been used for military purposes. And I'd been intrigued by a curious layout of tracks near Limberlost Farm, between Crookham village and Crookham Manor. It turned out that it had been a storage area for conventional bombs, as was what is now Baynes Nature Reserve, north of Greenham Common.

My favourite site is that of the WWI wireless station (https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/27638-devizes-wireless-station-wwis-gchq/) on the downs above Bishops Cannings, near Devizes.

Bear in mind that just about any wooded area in the South of England was used for storage prior to D-Day.

For WWII material it is worth looking at the Defence of Britain https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/ (https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/)

Not sure about the ease of looking for individual sites, I just tend to download complete categories for an area and map them using a GIS. One of the major investigators was Colin Dobinson and some of his findings have been published by Historic England. I have Fields of Deception which is about bombing decoys, of particular interest in Portsmouth area.

I am intrigued by some of the sections of NCN 2 across farmland between Warsash and Titchfield Haven are of the concrete section type described in Royal Engineers manuals on roads.

I have cycled that way myself before the glaucoma stopped me cycling and yes, you are right, there is a "military" look about that section

Going off on a tangent, when I was doing some research at the Wiltshire County Records office some years ago, I came across a wartime site plan marked "Top Secret" of the RAF base at Castle Combe, now Castle Combe racing circuit. The concrete floor slabs of the various buildings are ail still there to be seen today