Today’s poets can only marvel at John Betjeman’s popularity. By the time he died in 1984, he had sold more than two million copies of his books. He is now remembered for urging the Germans to drop their “friendly bombs” on Slough, as well as his passion for Victorian churches and young ladies playing tennis.

Although sometimes obsessed with urban architecture and suburbia, he also loved landscape and returned several times to live in what was then the Berkshire Downs, which he had first discovered on childhood holidays near Newbury. I decided to walk in his footsteps from Wantage, which has a park, a festival and a road named after him.

He lived in the town from 1951 to 1972, but we were heading for the home he moved from: a Georgian rectory in Farnborough, a hamlet high on the other side of the Downs.

I climbed to the Ridgeway via Lark Hill, a suburban street off the Reading road. It looks unpromising, but soon becomes an undulating green lane, stretching into the distance. It does not take much effort to get a view of the Vale of White Horse, though Betjeman would not have thought much of Didcot’s soon to be demolished cooling towers: “And if there is some scenery, Some unpretentious greenery, Surviving anywhere, It does not need protecting For soon we'll be erecting A Power Station there.”

The Ridgeway guide describes the towers as “sometimes menacing and inappropriate, but at other times strangely beautiful”, which seems about right.

We took a short diversion west along the trail to admire the Loyd-Lindsay monument, where Betjeman’s wife Penelope took the children for summer picnics, according to his daughter, Candida Lycett Green.

In her memoir The Dangerous Edge of Things she describes how her mother, with boundless energy, drove groups of children in a horse and cart for miles along green lanes from Farnborough.

The monument was erected by Loyd-Lindsay’s wife after his death in 1901. Interestingly, it is on a Bronze Age round barrow.

A founding member of the British Red Cross, Loyd-Lindsay was responsible for the statue to King Alfred in Wantage Market Place.

He is said to have planted the woodland on his large Lockinge Estate in the same formation as his troops during a Crimean battle, and after he retired from the army his village became a model experiment in social welfare.

We decided to return via Lockinge, but first took a diagonal path south, then braved the busy B4494 for a few yards before finding the footpath to Farnborough. This is marked on the map as a byway, but it would be tricky to get a horse and cart along. It starts as a faint path through a grassy field before joining a rutted downland track fringed with spring flowers.

From here I saw March hares performing mad tricks, then fox droppings and then — just a few yards from the cottages of Farnborough, at the spot marked ‘Moonlight Barn’ on the map — a herd of deer, antlers outlined against a dramatic skyline.

This seemed a magic place, with the name ‘Old Border’ marking one of the historic crossings into Berkshire.

I turned left towards the crossroads, where we admired the signpost — an ornate piece of ironwork which Betjeman, so keen on preserving Britain’s Victorian heritage, would have been proud of.

Farnborough can be a bleak place. It is one of the highest settlements on the downs and — at 220 metres – only a little lower than White Horse Hill, Oxfordshire’s summit since the 1974 boundary changes (261m). It has several wells, which is perhaps why people were able to make a living — water was a big problem on the Downs until supplies were piped in during the early 20th century.

Betjeman moved here from Uffington in 1945 and today it is a grand house, easily seen from the road across a ha-ha (ornamental ditch). The garden is open several times a year for the National Garden Scheme, and well worth a visit.

It is difficult to believe that the village school, which has long since become a house, had 11 pupils in 1949, the year described in his daughter’s memoir. Candida Lycett Green traced six of them, and transcribed their collective memories of running wild in the endless countryside, collecting flowers and inventing stories about the inhabitants.

“The other children's parents were farm workers. I had no idea what my father did; all I knew was that he went to London on a train,” she writes.

In All Saints Church, opposite the rectory, is a bright John Piper window dedicated to Betjeman — a fitting tribute since he loved church architecture.

The choice of paths back towards the Ridgeway is uninspiring. The AA describes its circular walk from Farnborough as “breezy downland” but farmers have been ploughing up sheep fields for some years to plant wheat or fodder — now much more profitable than sheep — although the chalky soil now needs the help of fertiliser.

I trekked through an endless field of oilseed rape to join a pleasant track called Old Street, reputed to pre-date the Ridgeway. The remains of ancient paving can be seen as it crosses the road at Lands End Cottage. Now I was in horse country, where the long gallops are soft for walkers’ boots as well as for delicate racehorses.

I climbed the Ilsley Downs Riding Route to cross the Ridgeway and descend to Lockinge, pausing to find the hidden memorial to Betjeman’s wife Penelope — a sarsen stone hidden under a hawthorn tree by the junction with an inscription carved into the sandstone.

The track soon becomes a lane with good views of the model Victorian village, created during an agricultural depression in 1861. In its heyday, the estate yard alone created over 100 jobs, with a workforce including carpenters, brick layers, and mechanics.

Village reading rooms and paraffin street lamps were funded by profits from the pub. A co-operative store was created in the hope of lowering prices and increasing supplies of home-produced food.

The bakery, slaughterhouse and other buildings in the nearby village of Ardington have been converted to offices or rural industry. The supply of homes for rent creates a more mixed community than in many Oxfordshire villages. However, there are not enough children for a school, and Lockinge and Ardington pupils now go to the Hendreds.

Having walked more than 12 miles, I took the quickest route back to Wantage, following the minor road and then a 1km cycle route created by Sustrans along a bridleway, which comes out in Lark Hill.

• There are few refreshments on the Downs and this walk totalled 15 miles, so take a picnic or visit Farnborough when the rectory gardens are open for the National Gardens Scheme (with teas) on Sundays April 14, May 12 and June 16 (2-5.30pm).

• Map: Explorer 170. Oxford-Wantage bus (X30) www.stagecoachbus.com See my website groundhogwalking.co.uk