[1] Follow the public footpath beside the Coppid Hill Guest House through a squeeze stile and a kissing gate into a field. Turn right and follow the hedge, keeping it on your right, as it turns left, right and left again. Keep straight ahead crossing a path and pass between two storage yards towards the dual carriageway A329. Cross the stile and turn left alongside the dual carriageway. Follow the path as it drops down to go through the underpass.
[2] Turn half left and cross the field, following the FP16 posts. Cross the road (Peacock Lane) and go down the tarmac lane marked 'Private Lane' on the other side. Go through a kissing gate and keep on the tarmac path until eventually you pass a car park on the right and then turn left onto to gravel path with a feather-boarded fence on the right. At the end turn left and pass to the left side of the metal gates. Follow this tarmac lane past Easthampstead Park Community School on the right. Shortly after the school's main entrance fork right off the pavement and follow the path. Cross a small access road to the school and keep on the tarmac path (Ramblers’ Route), with houses on the left and a chain link fence on the right. Turn right, following the Ramblers’ Route, past a childrens' play area and through a metal fence to a road junction.
Turn left along South Road following Ramblers’ Route and go into the second (public) car park on the left-hand side of the road. Take the right-hand track through the pine woods which goes parallel and to the right of the road. At a wide crossing track turn left up the hill and at the top fork right. Near the end of the wood look for the white concrete post on the left and follow the path to a second post at the road.
[3] Turn left along pavement to the roundabout by the 'Golden Retriever'. Cross Crowthorne Road (dual carriageway) with care and continue along Nine Mile Ride, crossing the road where pavement ends (by Ramblers’ Route sign). Follow the path parallel with the road for about 150 yards, until you see the sign 'Crown Estate - Swinley Forest'. Turn right to follow the track up into the woods. At a path junction, turn right and then immediately left to continue in the same direction, now climbing steeply. At top of the hill continue for 100 yards until a path comes in from the right and then, after 20 yards, turn left on to a broad flat path. At the T-junction turn right (the high ground of Caesar’s Camp can be seen to the left).
(A) This iron age hill fort, more than 2,000 years old, covers an area of about 17 acres and is surrounded by a mile long ditch; it is a remarkable piece of engineering having been constructed entirely by hand using basic tools. While primarily a defensive location, it is possible that Caesar’s Camp could have been a market place or a religious or political centre. English Heritage conducted various surveys of the site in the 1990’s but little was revealed.
Follow this clear path, which describes a curve, but heads generally south, for over ½ mile. On reaching a large intersection immediately after a metal gate turn right and follow the restricted byway, The Devil’s Highway, to the underpass (A3095).
(B) This was the Roman road from London to Silchester, whose Roman name was Calleva Atrebatum. This was a large town covering about 40 hectares, an administrative centre and an important trading centre specialising in metal, wood, textiles and leather working. It was largely abandoned after the Romans left Britain in the 5th century, and has been “rediscovered” by archaeological investigation in the last 100 years.
[4] Climb up from the underpass, follow the path down and take the Ramblers’ Route path on the left. Pass a lake on the left and then, by a metal gate, pass through a squeeze stile, still following Ramblers Route. After two houses on the right, pass through a metal gate and continue ahead along the lane. Broadmoor Hospital is visible on the right.
(C) The hospital was built to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb of the royal Engineers and covers a secure area of 53 acres. It received its first prisoners in 1863. During World War 1, Broadmoor’s Block 1 was used as a prisoner-of-war camp, called Crowthorne War Hospital, for mentally ill German soldiers. Broadmoor now houses about 260 patients and is also a centre for training and research.
After an escapee, John Straffen murdered a local child in 1952, an alarm system to alert residents in surrounding towns was established. A two tone alarm sounds in the event of an escape and it is tested every Monday morning at 10 am for two minutes, after which a single tone ‘all clear’ sounds for a further two minutes.
At the intersection, go straight ahead across a stile to join a footpath, again signed Ramblers Route. Continue along a partly hedged footpath between fields, soon passing through two concrete gateposts with a small stile step to the left. Keep straight on, with a hedge on the right, into woods and over a well-made metal stile following a woodland path which meanders up and through the woods and fields. After another metal stile cross a tarmac path and continue straight on. Cross another stile then, after crossing a wooden bridge over a stream, at the T-junction turn left through the kissing gates by Wildmoor Heath notice board. At the path cross roads turn right along the bridleway with a post and rail fence on the left. Keep on this path through the woods, go through a metal gate. Eventually the path reaches a large metal gate and a road.
[5] Cross the road to join a downhill footpath immediately opposite (Ramblers' Route). Where paths cross, keep straight on under the line of pylons and continue into the woods. Leave the woods along a track, past houses on the left and a wooden fence on the right. Immediately opposite house no. 46, turn right along a short track into a residential development. At the road (Grampian Road), turn left and follow it past New Scotland Hill School. Turn right at the T-junction at the end of Grampian Road. Walk past the small green with mature trees on the right, and at house no. 33 turn right on to a public footpath (Ramblers’ Route). Cross under the pylons and follow the path alongside a just discernible railway embankment on the left. After 200 yards, pass through an iron kissing gate to a pedestrian railway crossing. Cross the railway, (with care) and pass through a second set of gates. Follow the path ahead and turn left after about 50 yards, then right, on to a tarmac path to Ambarrow Court car park.
(D) Once a Victorian country estate, the original 1855 house of Ambarrow Court has since been demolished. What remains is a 21 acres Nature Reserve and Wildlife Heritage site, open to access, with a nature trail. Ancient woodland includes coppiced birch and hazel, and there are marshes, ponds and a meadow on the lower slopes of Ambarrow Hill. Notable plants include bluebells, cuckoo flower and yellow rattle, plus mature trees such as Cedar and Douglas Fir; and some large specimen trees and yew hedges are leftover remnants of the Victorian era.
If you wish to continue with the next section of the Wokingham Way, the route continues by leaving the Ambarrow Court car park and crossing the A321 Wokingham Road.