Saturday Ride - Stratfield Saye & Bramley - 13th November 2010

Following 5 days of wet and windy weather all was calm and dry today. Opportunity to get out there and make up for a serious lack of miles this week.
I wanted to head out to Stratfield as this area is fairly flat and I thought this was a good idea after a few days without a decent run. Usual route from Phoenix Green to Mattingley and then out to Stratfield Saye via Turgis Green. This route took me past the Wellington Estate and some of it's outlying offices up towards Beech Hill (not any real sort of climb). All the way going north I could see a tantalising strip of blue sky (probably some way north of London) which didn't seem to move south all day! Suddenly it really looks like Winter out there.
After turning west towards the Roman remains at Silchester, I dropped south in the direction of Bramley crossing the ford in Clapper's Farm Lane which was (after this weeks rainfall) deeper than usual!

From Bramley I rode towards Sherfield on Loddon and from there back to Rotherwick via Hartley Wespall. Not sure of the state of business at Rotherwick's two pubs: the Falcon appears to closed and has a sign saying 'Opening Soon' and the Coach and Horses, which I had thought to be permanently closed, had a sign outside saying 'Open Saturday'. These are tough times for Pubs.  

                                                              Entrance to Wellington Park

                                         Beech Hill - Unreachable strip of Blue Sky to the North

                                                             Corn Crows - Beech Hill

                                                 Ford - Clappers Farm Lane, near Bramley

The Route