RG7

Theale, Mortimer, Burghfield and the Kennet villages

The biggest district on the patch by a distance — more than thirty villages spread across a lot of open country. Be specific about where you are and this goes smoothly.

It divides in two. The eastern side — Spencers Wood, Three Mile Cross, Grazeley, Swallowfield, Riseley — is commuter villages on B-roads with steady traffic and ordinary punctures. The west is farmland: Bucklebury, Stanford Dingley, Bradfield, Beenham, Woolhampton and the lanes around them are single-track, flint-surfaced at the edges, and muddy for half the year. Tractor traffic pulls stone onto the tarmac and hedge-cutting leaves thorn and wire. Theale sits by the M4 junction and picks up motorway debris and business park traffic. Aldermaston and Burghfield have controlled roads with checkpoints on them.

A village name alone is not enough out here. Give us the lane and the nearest junction, or a what3words if you have signal.