Braywick – Maidenhead – North Town – Green Way West – Cookham – Green Way East

1 May 2006

• Total distance: 8 miles
• Start point: Braywick Park, SU 894795
• Weather: Sunny with broken dark grey clouds
• Temperature at start: 15C.
• Muddiness rating: * (*=dry, *****=awful)
• People passed: About thirty
• Step counter: 17,787.
• Camera: Olympus C-5060W. Images taken before deletions = 101.

A Royal Borough invention, the Green Way is a commendable attempt to create a nice walk through a heavily built-up area. In general it works well. Surprisingly only a small percentage of its length is bordered by buildings, and anyone doing the whole 8 mile return trip is more than likely to spot herons, mallards and coots, as well as more exotic species at certain times of the year. Much of the path runs alongside the waterway known variously along its course as The Cut, York Stream, Maidenhead Ditch and White Brook. The day I walked it all were flowing healthily, even under Bridge Road in the centre of Maidenhead, where in the past it's usually been little more than a fly-humming mudflat. In fact in recent years it has sustained a healthy flow during winter but water has receded north during June, before returning to the town centre around the end of the year. Not perfect - but preferable to the period between 1988 and 1991 when there was no flow at all.

I followed the signposted path heading north from Braywick Park, but a more interesting path runs along The Cut a few hundred meters to the east, where in the past I’ve seen kingfishers and big lazy yellow-brown fish.

Braywick Park itself is pretty enough at this time of year, with lots of blossom, but it became clear after a few minutes’ walk that the colour on this stretch would be provided more by the graffiti than the flora. The huge tags of Zerk and his sad friends didn’t spoil the view though. The broken furniture, shopping trolleys and plastic in the stream saw to that.

North of the town centre however, things improved quickly. It’s very impressive how quickly the path gets you out of civilisation (or what passes for it on Planet Zerk) into open country. Less than a mile from Pizza Express I was by a babbling stream, looking at a large bronze statue of a hippo and its young. Now as bronze hippos go, this is great. It’s one of my favourites. A top hippo. But on North Town Moor? Someone please tell me why it’s there. There’s no plaque or information to help put it in context. A bronze heron or horse wouldn’t need any supporting information but a two-ton hippo does, take it from me. Unfortunately it had been treated to a visit by Zerk, who was probably chuffed to happen upon something of a comparable intellectual level.

Further on, the path crossed a large field of oil seed rape. Strange how the two characteristic flowers of this time of year are rape and bluebells: could there be two colours further apart on the colour wheel? Maybe that provides a clue to the mystery of why bluebells have been famously difficult to capture on film, while no-one has any difficulty with the bright mustard yellow of rape. I haven’t tried pointing my digital camera at a bluebell yet, but I doubt if it’ll be unduly troubled.

At Cookham Moor the path emerged by the brick bridge, presented to the people of Cookham by a grateful Mrs Balfour Allen in appreciation of her many years' happy residence. It’s said that her generous gift ignored the rather obvious hitch that there wasn’t actually a river in Cookham that needed bridging. There was no discernable flow in the water beneath it when I was there, supporting the notion that the ditch was dug to justify the bridge.

In Cookham Moor car park I joined the queue at the ever-present ice-cream van, then remembered I didn’t have any money, so I trudged off on the homeward leg, this time down the Green Way East. It was a pleasant, level walk in warm afternoon light. On Widbrook Common the eponymous little White Brook mirrored an early dragonfly, threading its way through the willow branches as they dipped the water.

Click here for map > GreenWaymap

Civic Society article on York Stream > http://www.maidenheadcivicsoc.org.uk/projects/yorkstream.htm

Choose another walk > TheWalks

-- RodBird - 20 May 2006