Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury

This parkrunday I visited Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury for the first time. After two weeks if repeats at Mole Valley parkrun and Banstead Woods parkrun, it was time for a few event. And this had been planned for a long long time.

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury is a relatively new event. It started in September 2025 and yet, it was still only clocking in its 16th event this week. Shortly after it started, winter came and the event had to take what was expected to be a short break. Something to do with landowners permission being withdrawn to preserve the ground during muddy season. What initially was expected only to be a short 2 months break doubled up to more to nearly 4 months. But in mid April the new event was back again, ready to restart from event number 10.

When the event started, I had only just begun collecting new events to boost my (Golden) Wilson Index, after securing my one and only inaugural at Greenwich Peninsula parkrun earlier in 2025. Then the break came and some of the event numbers I had reserved for this event were taken by other newcomers, ARU Writtle parkrun or Holywell King George V Playing Fields parkrun. But 16 was now set as a target and Victoria Park parkrun has had this date in my planner for a couple of months.

Victoria Park parkrun shines for one more reason for obsessive chasers of pointless challenges like me. It gives you a V, that is a fairly rare commodity in the South East, even more after the sad demise of Victoria Dock parkrun. Rest in peace. For me, the event represented the third V, useful in my progression towards multiple alphabeths.

Anyway, enough with my rumblings. It’s time to dive into some more info about Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury!

Trip to Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury and parking

The event takes place in Victoria Park, pretty much in the centre of Newbury, in Berkshire. If you google it, even the Wikipedia-sourced summary on the search place defines it a ‘small park’ and while not a micro-park, it is indeed quite a feat the team managed to slot a 5K into it without resorting to more laps than 2. Or did they? More on that later.

According to the official event site, the closest station to Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury is, unsurprisingly Newbury train station. The station is operated by Great Western and it offers fast connections to London Paddington and more local connections to Reading and Bedwyn. According to Google Maps, the station is 0.6 miles walk away from the parkrun meeting point, or about 13 minutes walk. If you are coming by bus, Newbury train station is also about 400 metres away.

If you are driving, Newbury is fairly easy to reach, near to major motorways connections. It takes little more than 1h from London in early morning traffic and once you reach town, Victoria Park is very close. There is no dedicated car park for Victoria Park, but the central location means there are many options to choose from to leave your car. None of them is free though. I chose the multi-storey car park of the Parkway Shopping Centre. The car park is just across the road from Victoria Park and it is not expensive. It is also arranged in a fairly pleasant open air format, with a number of decent retail options opening up around a central square. I hate shopping, but if it is your thing, you can indulge after parkrun for a short while. I didn’t, why spoil my day! 🙂

If you park there, exit the car park, cross the road and enter the park. You will see Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury from there. Just a couple of minutes walk.

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury: start and briefings

If you enter the park from the corner closest to Parkway, you will immediately meet a parkrun yellow sign by the gate. Yes, that corner will be part of the route. Walk into the park and you will see the meeting point across a meadow, slightly to your right. Cross the field and you will be where you are supposed to be.

The meeting point is in a clearing in the middle of a few focal points. Queen Victoria’s statue on one side, a skate park on another and a children play area with facilities, cafe and toilets on the other.

Queues at the toilets were quite long, so even the New Joiners Briefing started a bit later than usual. When it started, it took place in the clearing, with a bit of help from a sound system, but it is very open and busy, so hearing every single word was not easy. It spent quite a bit of time covering the course layout, because it does get quirky and people can make mistakes. After that briefing, everybody moves towards the path and the RD calls for the Main Briefing on the meadow on the opposite side.

Then it’s time to move back to the path, where signs are available for a seeded start. This is important because the path is not very wide and the course will lead to plenty of counterflow points and bottlenecks.

3, 2, 1.

Time to go!

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury – star ratings

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury course review – route highlights

There were 350 parkrunners on the day of my visit to Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury. This is only event 16 and, since there was a long hiatus during winter, the event is still kind of fresh for many parkrun tourists. I don’t think we have enough history to pin down long term attendance levels with confidence, but a pattern is starting to emerge. This is a fairly busy event, with fields of 350-450 consistently showing up since the return. At this attendance level, the event always feels busy, but rarely overcrowded. Rarely, because it does have one clear pressure point.

Talking about pressure points, the obvious bottleneck is the entrance/exit of the football field area. The area is fenced off, with a smallish opening to get into and out of it. Everyone will need to get in there, run two laps of the perimeter and then get out of it. This makes for a fun, busy circuit, but also a massive choke point. Every one of the 4 time I had to go through there, I had to slow down. And both times I got there to get it, I had to slow down and walk into it rather than run into it. Other areas of counterflow flow more nicely, with only the bit under the bridge worth mentioning as a potential congested bit. Terrain wise, pay attention to a raised drain pipe on the side of the big field closer to Parkway.

Surface-wise, this is definitely a mixed terrain course. A lot of it is on good, surfaced paths. But there are several, long grass crossing and a few small sections on hard paths. Mud risk is fairly high during wet periods and trail shoes are recommended for those months, assuming the event will run then. On the day of my visit, there had been recent rains, but clearly they had not been bad enough to affect terrain. I ran wearing road shoes and had no issues with that.

Elevation-wise, at 19m elevation gain over two laps, this is definitely a flat course. There are very short up and downs around the canal and on the grass crossing leading away y from the finish line to the right, but that’s about it. Except the bump up to the canal, I did not feel any real uphill. Elevation will not bother you here. At all.

In terms of scenic value, Victoria Park parkrun offers a few very beautiful corners. The canal, the short tree covered segment after the bridge, the approach to the small round lake. This are picture worthy corners. However, this is also a very urban park, so you will not find the wide sprawling vistas you would expect from countryside events.

Course design is quirky. It is, essentially, made of two segments. From the start, your run up to the canal and go down to cross under a bridge that gets you to the football field side. Cross towards the football field and do 2 laps of it. Then come back and around the start area turn right and start a wide loop around the edges of the park. Do it all twice.

A quick Relive route plot is on my YouTube Channel, with longer video highlights embedded below.

At the start, you start on a straight, paved path. It passes by the cafe and then it keeps going straight for a short while. Some trees on the side and two meadows on both sides. At the end you turn left slightly and climb onto a path running by the canal. Beautiful views and streaming water, but it’s for less than 100m. Then you turn left again and go down a short downhill leading you under a bridge. Cross the briedge and turn left and up slightly to start a short forest segment.

The tree covered area curves a bit, with the river still on your right. As you leave the tree covered area, go through a couple more turns on paths out in the open and then cross a field on grass. This gets you on a raised cement platform that you cross to reach the fence surrounding the football fields. Reach an opening in the fencing and wait for your turn to get in. When you are in, turn right and run the full perimeter twice. Yeah, twice. At the end of the second circuit, turn right and get back out from the same opening. It is buy in the circuit and the mess made by people at different paces and running different laps make it fun enough to compensate for the boredom of running laps.

As you exit the area, head right and cross the field to reach a trail path leading back to the bridge area. Turn hard right before the outward section of the course and cross the bridge again, in the opposite direction. After the bridge, turn right and cross another field, heading towards a beautiful round pond. Reach the pond and run around 1/4 of its circumference. Then leave it and cross another field heading towards the path where the run had started. Turn into that path and now run it again in the opposite direction.

This is another 2-flow segment and you stick to it until you reach the start area. This time, turn right and start another field crossing on grass. This is downhill and pleasant, then you reach the paved perimeter path on the other side of the filed. Turn left and left again and you are going on a straight that gets you to the same starting path again, just after the Victoria statue. Cross that path behind the statue and merge into a long straight paved path that heads towards the corner of the park where you had entered coming from Parkway.

At the corner, turn right and go along the other side of the park, on grass. Pass a couple of beautiful large trees until you reach another path by the bandstand. Turn left again here and immediately left again. This gets you on a wide, tree lined path going all the way to Queen Victoria’s statue again. Tackle a V turn here and you are again on the path where the run started. Go about 100m and you are by the finish funnel. Keep left on your first lap and run it all again.

The second time you get there, allow yourself to turn right and fly through the funnel on grass.

Congratulations on completing Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury!

Facilities at Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury

Victoria Park is a fairly small park, but it packs quite a lot of stuff in a rather small space. The area around the meeting point has a small cafe, a couple of toilets and substantial children’s play areas. On the other side of the park, a beautiful canal will link to an area with a fenced off football pitch.

The toilets are not far from the meeting point, however they are only two single booths and, with pretty high attendance numbers, queues form up before the event.

The cafe is at the opposite side of the same block where the toilets are. It has a small, but well positioned outdoor seating area and a small indoor area. Food options are fairly minimal, but there is an acceptable selection.

At Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury I had a chocolate muffin, a red orange soda and a single espresso. This cost me roughly £7.5, roughly in line with average prices in fancy locations.

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury: Video Highlights

As usual, I’ve taken a few video snippets during the run to give an idea of the course. If you like it, please subscribe, it’s a fun past time for me 🙂

The other parkrun videos on my YouTube channel are all linked on the course review and video highlights summary page.

• Instagram
• Twitter
• YouTube

---

Achievements and performance

Conclusions

Victoria Park parkrun, Newbury has a really unusual course design. The park is much more compact than I expected, but it hosts enough different features to make the course quite interesting. The 4 laps of the football field are a bit of an ordeal, but if you come here occasionally, it is actually a fun, quirky bit.

I enjoyed my visit and I am sure anyone coming will enjoy it too. Make you could even spot the sun when you visit!

Finally, obviously, thank you, Victoria Park parkrun team for your hospitality!