Walk 3 - Manor Farm Lakes

A popular walk of 2 milesIt takes in part of 'the Thames Path, and views aver several lakes.

Start at the Horse and Jockey Inn, near the western end of Gosditch. As you emerge from the pub car park, turn left and walk the fen yards to the end of the street. Without crossing the main road, turn right along the tarmac footpath until you reach a stile. Ignore this and carry on along the roadside for a few more yards. You will see a kissing gate across the road which leads you onto a path that follows the hedgerow parallel to the road. The lake on your left, with its small islands, is one of the best landscaped in the area. You may see red crested pochards and great crested grebes on the lake, and reed warblers and chiffchaff along the margins. The goosander is a winter visitor.

The path emerges onto the Thames Path, where you turn left. You may be lucky enough to spot a kingfisher along here. After a couple of minutes you reach Flood Hatches. Here an offshoot of the river takes part of the water from the Thames to supplement the Swill Brook. Carry on a little further and you come to Culli's Bridge, where a gravel operator's haul road crosses river and footpath. Watch out for the banded demoiselle (a smaller relative of the dragonfly) in the summer, and passing lorries throughout the year. Cross the river here by the footbridge and immediately cross the stile.

The path leaves the Thames behind and is flanked by the haul road on its right and another attractive lake on its left A few minutes later you come out onto a branch of the haul road that leads to your left. You cross this and continue along the left-hand side of the main haul road; Ashton Keynes church tower is visible across the lake to your right. Gravel diggings abound, to left and right.

In a couple of minutes you turn right towards the church and follow a narrow spit of land between two flooded gravel pits Carry on along this track for half a mile or so (with water on either side, you have little choice for most of the way) until you reach the main road again. There is a permission to extract gravel from under this footpath where it separates (he two lakes, so the route may not be possible for very long, when the gravel operator puts forward an acceptable alternative. Enjoy it while you can! On the left-hand side, at the start of this stretch, is a group of trees where you may well see herons up aloft, for this is where they nest. It is also a roost site for cormorant. This land at least will remain when the footpath is dug up. The banks of the right-hand lake form a home for sand martins.

Further on you pass an ancient, mighty bam. At the time of writing this is under reconstruction after a fire a few years ago. Immediately afterwards you pass the boarded-up Manor House. The passing of the centuries has left it isolated, well away from the modern village, The owner hopes that it will become the centrepiece of a leisure complex in the future.

When you reach the road you can turn right and retrace your steps to Gosditch. If you still have the energy for a slight diversion, turn right along the road over the Thames and pass the metal gates of the Pumping Station, but then immediately turn through a gap in the

metal rails into its field. Head diagonally across this field to your right, passing the main building on your left and two smaller ones on your right. You arrive at a stile into the next field and continue in the same direction to a second stile. Over this a narrowalley leads you between gardens back to Gosditch. Turn right to return to the start point. Hopefully, you will have timed it for the pub to be open.