Photo: Bill Nicholls · CC BY-SA 2.060% of the land within 5 km of Cold Ash is National Park or National Landscape
The North Wessex Downs National Landscape reaches the edge of Cold Ash. 7% of residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park or playing field. Parks and playing fields in Cold Ash add up to 1.5 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Cold Ash grades C+ for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Cold Ash?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Cold Ash’s strongest suit is protected countryside on the doorstep. Where it falls short is how far some homes are from a park.
Cold Ash grades C+ for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Cold Ash, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
100
100
100
100
100
Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Cold Ash is 29th of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 2,200 to 2,400 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Cold Ash stands out most for path per km²: only 16 of the other 59 have more. It falls furthest behind on homes near a park, where 56 of the others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Limpsfield Surrey | A+ | 2.9 | 100% | 3.7 | 41% |
| 2 | Tanyfron Clwyd | A | 7.4 | 100% | 2.6 | 13% |
| 3 | Radford Semele Warwickshire | A | 12.3 | 100% | 4.4 | 0% |
| 4 | Elstead Surrey | A | 2.5 | 100% | 2.6 | 82% |
| 5 | Westcott Surrey | A | 1.8 | 86% | 5.5 | 78% |
| 6 | Hapton Lancashire | A | 2.6 | 87% | 6.1 | 2% |
| 7 | Harlington Bedfordshire | A− | 2.7 | 100% | 2.7 | 16% |
| 8 | Great Horkesley Essex | A− | 4.7 | 78% | 3.3 | 25% |
| 9 | Millbrook Cornwall | A− | 2 | 100% | 1.1 | 19% |
| 10 | Arnside Cumbria | A− | 1.3 | 65% | 4.1 | 75% |
| 11 | Berrow and Brean Somerset | A− | 3.6 | 75% | 1.7 | 1% |
| 12 | Clare Suffolk | A− | 7.7 | 100% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 13 | Acle Norfolk | B+ | 1.6 | 89% | 3.1 | 43% |
| 14 | Hall Green West Yorkshire | B+ | 7.5 | 82% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 15 | Tisbury Wiltshire | B+ | 1.5 | 86% | 2.9 | 100% |
| 16 | Woodford Greater Manchester | B+ | 5.9 | 80% | 2.3 | 5% |
| 17 | Bowness-on-Windermere Cumbria | B | 1.7 | 76% | 2.8 | 100% |
| 18 | Crick Northamptonshire | B | 3.8 | 100% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 19 | Pen-y-fai Mid Glamorgan | B | 3.8 | 100% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 20 | Mayfield East Sussex | B− | 3.3 | 61% | 1.9 | 99% |
| 21 | Loddon Norfolk | B− | 2.4 | 77% | 2.5 | 18% |
| 22 | Dormansland Surrey | B− | 2.5 | 70% | 2.3 | 33% |
| 23 | Bickershaw Greater Manchester | B− | 5 | 13% | 4.7 | 0% |
| 24 | Park Street and Frogmore Hertfordshire | B− | 4.5 | 63% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 25 | Debenham Suffolk | C+ | 1 | 100% | 3.4 | 0% |
| 26 | Bere Alston Devon | C+ | 1.4 | 64% | 1.3 | 93% |
| 27 | Delph Greater Manchester | C+ | 0.7 | 72% | 3.9 | 17% |
| 28 | Boughton under Blean Kent | C+ | 2.7 | 24% | 2.5 | 18% |
| 29 | Cold Ash Berkshire | C+ | 1.5 | 7% | 3.1 | 60% |
| 30 | Berkeley Gloucestershire | C+ | 0.9 | 49% | 2.6 | 3% |
| 31 | Farndon Cheshire | C+ | 1.2 | 82% | 4.2 | 0% |
| 32 | Bishopsteignton Devon | C | 3 | 62% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 33 | Wickham Market Suffolk | C | 2.5 | 64% | 1.7 | 7% |
| 34 | Caistor Lincolnshire | C | 2.8 | 39% | 1.3 | 33% |
| 35 | Hawkesbury Warwickshire | C | 1 | 78% | 4.2 | 0% |
| 36 | Tatworth Somerset | C | 1.3 | 71% | 1.7 | 44% |
| 37 | Whaddon Wiltshire | C | 2.6 | 55% | 1.3 | 10% |
| 38 | Wardley Greater Manchester | C− | 0.6 | 88% | 3 | 0% |
| 39 | Stanford in the Vale Oxfordshire | C− | 1.3 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 40 | Wateringbury Kent | C− | 2.4 | 73% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 41 | Stoke Prior Worcestershire | C− | 2.6 | 67% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 42 | Coleford Somerset | C− | 1.2 | 51% | 4.5 | 0% |
| 43 | Creigiau South Glamorgan | C− | 1.7 | 85% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 44 | Coltishall and Horstead Norfolk | C− | 2.1 | 57% | 1.3 | 8% |
| 45 | Kings Sutton Northamptonshire | C− | 1.8 | 79% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 46 | Usk Gwent | C− | 3.5 | 56% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 47 | St Osyth Essex | C− | 1.5 | 54% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 48 | Scholes (Leeds) West Yorkshire | D | 0 | 0% | 5.5 | 0% |
| 49 | Comberton Cambridgeshire | D | 1.6 | 71% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 50 | Bicknacre Essex | D | 1 | 56% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 51 | Kineton Warwickshire | D | 0.2 | 0% | 1.8 | 5% |
| 52 | Belton Lincolnshire | D | 1.5 | 67% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 53 | Great Barford Bedfordshire | D− | 1.4 | 45% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 54 | Tattenhall Cheshire | D− | 1.8 | 28% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 55 | Bettws Mid Glamorgan | D− | 0.7 | 71% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 56 | Ixworth Suffolk | D− | 1 | 73% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 57 | Hingham Norfolk | D− | 1.9 | 13% | 1 | 0% |
| 58 | Norton South Yorkshire | D− | 1.3 | 63% | 0.7 | 0% |
| 59 | Isleham Cambridgeshire | D− | 0.2 | 71% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 60 | Puriton Somerset | D− | 0.1 | 0% | 1.4 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Cold Ash’s built-up area.
1 in 10 Cold Ash residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 2,100 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 23 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 99 residents.
National Parks and National Landscapes around Cold Ash
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
North Wessex Downs
60% of the land within 5 km of Cold Ash is National Park or National Landscape, more than 94% of UK towns.
Footpaths in and around Cold Ash
53 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Cold Ash and the kilometre around it, 3.1 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0).
No named walking route is mapped within 2 km of Cold Ash; its footpaths are on the map above.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Cold Ash: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.3 | 9.9 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.6 | 16.6 | 16.2 | 14.6 | 12.5 | 10.6 | 8.8 | 7.9 |
| High (°C) | 8 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 77 | 55 | 48 | 54 | 53 | 50 | 52 | 58 | 57 | 81 | 83 | 73 |
March is the driest month (48 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 22 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 83 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 49 nights a year. The climate in Cold Ash →
23 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Cold Ash is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Every named place, with directions
Picnic sites 1
Plus 1 picnic site without a name on the map.
Playgrounds 23
Plus 21 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Ash | C+ | 1.5 | 7% | 60% |
| Hermitage 1.7 mi | C+ | 0.6 | 58% | 82% |
| Thatcham 2.0 mi | B+ | 1.9 | 87% | 27% |
| Upper Bucklebury 2.2 mi | C | 0.1 | 0% | 48% |
| Newbury 3.3 mi | B+ | 1.9 | 81% | 50% |
| Compton 5.9 mi | B+ | 2.4 | 100% | 100% |
| Upper Basildon 6.6 mi | C+ | 2.3 | 0% | 97% |
Compton, 5.9 miles away, grades B+, the best next door: every resident lives within 400 m of a park.
Questions about the outdoors in Cold Ash
Is Cold Ash near a National Park?
It covers 1,731 km² and was designated in 1972.
What is the nearest beach to Cold Ash?
Penguin Beach, 24 mi from the edge of the village, then The Leys Park (24 mi). Cold Ash itself is inland.
How many people in Cold Ash live near a park?
7% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Cold Ash?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Cold Ash good for walking?
For paths, yes: 3.1 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 63% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 27% (1.5 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Cold Ash’s overall grade.
Where Cold Ash’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.