Dorchester-on-Thames - Catherine Wheels, Christograms and Brahma Kumaris

It's been more than four years since we did our Dorchester walk back in May 2011 - that's the bigger and better known Dorchester in Dorset, rather than the little village of Dorchester-on-Thames, which is tucked into a quiet corner of South Oxfordshire. 

Actually it's been five years since we started doing our series of the Chester walks, the first walk being Ancaster, in Lincolnshire, back in July 2010. To date we've covered 36 Chesters although, as we've been going along, we keep finding more (the most recent discovery was all the Caers in Wales), so I estimate that we have another 26 Chesters to do before we finish, which should keep us going for another good 4 or 5 years! 

Dorchester-on-Thames has been on our list since the beginning and I remember being vaguely aware of it when we were doing our second Chester walk in Bicester, on the other side of the county. 

As much as possible, we like to stay in the Chester that features in our walk, so it was with no small amount of excitement that we made our way to Dorchester-on-Thames and a lovely welcome at the Fleur de Lys last Friday night. Dorchester is a difficult enough place to get to, for non-drivers like ourselves, but we're lucky enough to have a friend who lives locally and who gave us a lift from Culham station to the village.

Dorchester Abbey - stained glass window

Whilst most of our walks have been just me and BAM (Best Aussie Mate), we were joined by BRH (Best Russian Husband) this time, who also joined us on our Rochester, Northumberland walk back in January 2014. He only seems to join us on the 'double-named' Chesters like Rochester and Dorchester!

Dorchester Abbey - side door

Dorchester Abbey - worn statues

After a hearty meal and a good night's sleep, we woke up to a wet and chilly morning. It was the last day of summer time, so we were in no rush to set off. We intended to make the most of our extra hour of daylight, so we pottered around Dorchester Abbey and faffed around in the village, stocking up on water and chocolate before striking down the High Street and out into the wilds of Oxfordshire.

Entrance to Dorchester Abbey

Dorchester to Drayton St Leonard (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

Dorchester is a pretty place and it feels like an island, being almost completely surrounded by water - bounded by the River Thames in the south and what look like small lakes, but are actually water-logged gravel pits, in the north. Its strategic location and the fact that it was easy-to-defend against marauding Celts, made the area attractive to the Romans, who established a settlement here.

Dorchester is, historically, considered to be the starting point of the Thames, as the river upstream of Dorchester was called the Isis. It's a distinction that people rarely make these days and the whole river is now usually referred to as the Thames. 

We started our walk by following the High Street out of the village, past rustic Tudor-style cottages and stone buildings until we found the turn-off for Drayton Road - a mere lane really, leading to the busy Oxford Road and Queenford Farm.

War memorial in Dorchester village

My Ordnance Survey map and Google maps began to disagree at this point and Drayton Road seemed to disappear into the bushes, which confused us a bit and it took a couple of wrong turns before we eventually found our way again and started off along a straight lane to Wally corner.

Leaving Dorchester-on-Thames

At Wally corner we turned right and took the Dorchester Road towards Drayton St Leonard's. The landscape was frighteningly banal at this point, flat and dull, the only relief being blasts of autumnal orange and red from distant trees. Just before Drayton St Leonard, we took a footpath across a dyke and remarked at the number of flowers that were still blooming, especially poppies, which seems unusual for this time of the year.

BAM walking across the dyke to Drayton St Leonard

We took momentary shelter at St Leonard and St Catherine's, a wonderful little church with a magnificent timber bell tower. Whilst we remarked at the fact that the village took on the male saint's name, but not the female's, we also wondered who St Leonard was and why he was chosen as the namesake of this obscure Oxfordshire hamlet.

Church at Drayton St Leonard

It turns out that there was a bit of a cult of St Leonard in Western Europe in the 12th century, which corresponds to the time that this church was first built. St Leonard came from Limousin in France and his abbey at Noblac, near Limoges, became a popular stop on the St James pilgrimage way, which ends in Santiago. Indeed, we did find reference to the Santiago pilgrim's route, inside the church. As both myself and BAM have walked along the Camino de Santiago, we're always on the look out for signs and references to this famous path.

Drayton St Leonard wooden boxes for papers

It's also quite possible that Noblac was a stopping point for Crusaders, so St Leonard's church in Drayton was most likely part of that tradition. St Catherine was a convert to Christianity who was martyred in 4th century Egypt and no doubt represented, to the 12th century English crusaders, conquest of the heathen eastern lands! 

It doesn't feel like much has changed in Drayton St Leonard since the 12th century and we contemplated the import of history, as we munched on our chocolates in the church porch. 

Drayton St Leonard to Marsh Baldon (1.7 miles/2.8 kilometres) 

From the church at Drayton St Leonard, we walked to a pub called The Catherine Wheel (no doubt in honour of St Catherine) and then doubled back on a byway that ran behind the church and, what looked like, 19th century alms houses. The byway took us out into the most wonderful open space and along an occasionally muddy concrete path that led, more or less, to the village of Chiselhampton.

BAM and BRH on the path to Chiselhampton

We didn't actually enter the village of Chiselhampton, but crossed the Oxford Road on the edge of the village, picking up a path called the Shakespeare's Way, which turns left into a small wood. Shakespeare's way is a path that runs 146 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon to the Globe theatre in London. It's the first time we've come across it, although we have been to Stratford on one of our previous Chester walks.

Just like Shakespeare's plays, there was something very elemental about the landscape between Chiselhampton and Marsh Baldon. The black earth of the ploughed fields, with dark green hedgerows and the sky hanging low and and grey gave the countryside a haunted feeling, which I thought was quite appropriate as Halloween was just around the corner!

The elemental earth near Marsh Baldon

At Marsh Baldon we met the old Roman road which, even today, runs in a very straight line back to Dorchester. 

Marsh Baldon to Clifden Hampden (1.9 miles/3.1 kilometres) 

Marsh Baldon is a very pretty place, with a row of stone cottages looking out over the village common and a little pond. We bought some eggs at the Parsonage Farm and then had a short rest before taking a public footpath across to the neighbouring village of Nuneham Courtenay.

Village pond at Marsh Baldon

We noticed that a lot of the local names (Courtenay, Camoys, D'Oyley) are of Norman origin, which might also explain the prevalence of the fleur-de-lys is this part of England.

The fleur-de-lys is a common sight in South Oxfordshire

Nuneham Courtenay is believed to have been the inspiration for Oliver Goldsmith's poem The Deserted village, as the old village was deserted and a new one built along the Dorchester to Oxford road. 

In fact, this whole area has quite a deserted feel about it and I found it little bit spooky in the dim autumn light. Quite rarely, for the countryside, we came across an abandoned church, Nuneham's All Saints, which had lots of lopsided headstones with esoteric symbols on them.

The abandoned All Saints Church in Nuneham Courtenay

The symbols, which look a bit like dollar signs, are what's known as Christograms (nothing to do with religious fetish or Stripograms!) and they represent three Greek letters ΙΗΣ (IHS), which comes from the Greek for Jesus Christ - ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. It was a real Da Vinci code scene, so we hurried on, following the very normal-sounding Oxford Greenbelt Way towards Nuneham House. 

We only really saw the gateway to the Nuneham House, but we did notice lots of signs for the Global Retreat Centre, a place for meditation and retreats run by the Brahma Kumaris (Daughters of Brahma) World Spiritual University. Think Hindu Suffragettes meets Scientology and you're part of the way there! They've obviously got some wealthy backers if they can afford to run a retreat in such a super-rich part of England.

Sign for the Global Retreat centre

Flower which reminds me of the supreme soul symbol

We were intrigued by the Global Retreat's symbol, which looks a bit like a Zoroastrian sun or fire symbol and, I guess, represents the Supreme Soul and/or the Cycle of Time. The Brahma Kumaris believe in 'soul consciousness' and I was quite interested in the 'soul stories' on their website.

Entrance to the Global Retreat

As we left the Global Retreat behind and made our way across Nuneham Park, the rain came on and the surrounding landscape took on a very sombre mien. We took a sharp left at the New Cottage, then a right at the Keeper's cottage, following a trail along the edge of Roundhill Wood, which brought us to the village of Clifton Hampden.

By the time we reached the village, it was raining quite heavily, so we made our way down to the Thames and the nearest pub, the Barley Mow, on the far side of Clifden Hampden bridge. 

Clifden Hampden to Culham Station (1.4 miles/2.25 kilometres)

After our meals and a couple of drinks, the last part of our walk was from The Barley Mow to Culham Station. Although it was the last day of summer time, it was getting dark by the time we made our way along the Abingdon Road, so we could catch the 19:15 train back to London. 

My abiding memory of this last part of the walk is seeing the sunset over Didcot Parkway, a fitting end to a rather weird and wonderful walk!

Sunset over Didcot Parkway

Access for wheelchair users

Public byway to Chiselhampton

The first part of this walk, from Dorchester-on-Thames to Drayton St Leonard was along country roads and was fairy accessible, if you can get through the bushes to Wally corner!  The road to Drayton St Leonard was relatively busy on the Saturday morning that we walked it and had lots of sharp corners, so I'd advise caution.   

The public byway from Drayton St Leonard to Chiselhampton was also fairly accessible, but a bit bumpy, so for more adventurous wheelchair users.  

Shakespeare's Way from Chiselhampton to Nuneham Courtenay was completely inaccessible, however, there are some interesting trails around Nuneham Courtenay and you would be able to wheelchair along the Oxford Greenbelt Way to Clifden Hampden.  

The road from Clifden Hampden to Culham station has a path alongside it and is also accessible, so mostly good news for wheelchair users from this walk!

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All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them under the following Creative Commons license:

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Mancetter - Broiled chickens, bean fields and Baronets

This was our second foray into the wilds of Warwickshire, just over a year after we did our first Warwickshire walk from Alcester to Stratford-upon-Avon.  Modern-day Warwickshire is a funny, kidney-shaped county and feels imposed upon by urban neighbours such as Coventry, Solihull and Birmingham.

The lurch of the urban sprawl into Warwickshire has left the county more or less divided into two parts - south Warwickshire, which we walked in last time - has the big tourists draws of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick town and Kenilworth Castle.  Rugby holds the middle ground, or the neck of the county and Nuneaton is the main settlement in north Warwickshire and was the focal point for our Mancetter walk.

One of the main reasons that we're doing this 'chester' series of walks is so we can visit parts of Britain that we wouldn't otherwise have visited and, I think it's safe to say, that north Warwickshire is somewhere we might never have been to, if it hadn't been for our Chester quest and the fact that the Romans found Mancetter to be a reasonable enough place to settle down in!

Lodgings and victuals

The Old House BnB in Witherley

We started our north Warwickshire experience by jumping off the train at Atherstone, which is the nearest station to Mancetter.  It was the last day of school for many teenagers around England and, during our walk along the Witherley Road, we were amused to find a trail of torn-up notebooks and other shredded remnants of academia, all leading triumphantly to the local high school!  I guess we've all been young at one point and the joy of 'School's out for summer' hasn't diminished since the days when BAM and I were in short pants!

This was one of those lucky occasions when we were able to find lodgings on a former Roman road, this time Watling Street, which was the road that ran from the Kentish ports to Wroxeter.  We had a lovely stay at the Old House BnB in Witherley and there was, very conveniently, a great pub opposite, The Bull Inn, which served up a mighty fine meal and great regional ale.

Witherley to Mancetter (0.4 miles/0.6 kilometres)

It's a short walk across a couple of fields to get from Witherley to Mancetter.  Witherley is actually in Leicestershire, so this short walk also included crossing the county border into Warwickshire.  The county (and regional) border is formed by the River Anker, a small river that runs from Nuneaton to Tamworth in nearby Staffordshire.

River Anker at Mancetter

The Roman name for Mancetter was Manduessedum which comes from the Celtic for 'horse chariot' and it's clear that Mancetter was a strategic staging point on the great road north.  It's believed that the Battle of Watling Street, when Celtic tribes rose up against the Romans, might have taken place around Mancetter.

These days Mancetter is quite a sleepy place and, as the traffic rushed by to the excitement of bigger towns and cities, we pottered around the Parish Church of St Peter's and marvelled at the sundial above the church door, which accurately told the time as 10:35.

Parish church of St Peter's in Mancetter

Church sundial at 10:35am

We were also quite impressed by the facade of Mancetter Manor - a privately owned house that dates back to the 14th century.

Mancetter Manor

An interesting piece of local history-in-the-making is the very visible campaign against a 'Chicken broiling' facility, which is proposed for the Nuneaton road, just south of St Peter's church.  I thought broiling was a cooking technique but, apparently, it refers to chickens that are bred purely for their meat and local residents are horrified by the impact on their village, of 40,000 chickens being bred to be slaughtered.  The villagers have successfully managed to block one application for the Chicken Broiling facility and they're currently resisting the appeal against this.

No Chicken Broiler in Mancetter

Mancetter to Oldbury Grange (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

With thoughts of massacred chickens still on our minds, we took Quarry Lane out of the village and crossed the railway tracks and the Coventry canal, before skirting around Quarry Farm and making our way uphill towards Oldbury Grange.

We've seen quite a few canals on our travels, but the Coventry canal at Mancetter looks particularly un-canal-like, in that it's not very straight but meanders, much like it's wilder cousin, the river.  The Coventry canal dates back to the 1760's, so I guess it was one of the earlier canals of the Industrial revolution period.  We met the canal again at the end of our walk in Nuneaton and it was a lot better behaved and more canal-like there!

Meadow near Oldbury Grange

It's quite a pleasant walk from Mancetter to Oldbury Grange and surprisingly rural, considering how much urban sprawl emanates from Nuneaton.  This was a strange walk in many ways, as we spent the entire day skirting around Nuneaton and we were never more than a half a mile from Nuneaton's suburbs.  Yet the landscape was strangely peaceful and empty, despite the nice weather - I suppose most people don't venture too far from 'civilisation'.

There are great views from Oldbury grange across three counties and the nearby Hartshill Hayes Country Park attracts local walkers, runners and families escaping the cities to go on a day trip.  We had a short rest at the park's Tea kiosk, before heading off again in the direction of Ansley Common.

View from Oldbury Grange

Oldbury Grange to Ansley Common (0.7 miles/1.1 kilometres)

Just outside Oldbury Grange, we picked up a way-marked trail, part of the 99-mile Centenary Way, the centenary in question being the 100th anniversary of Warwickshire County Council.  True to form, the Warwickshire Centenary Way does a kidney-outline of the county, cleverly avoiding Coventry and other former parts of the historical county.

Warwickshire Way markers

There seemed to be a bit of competition going on in terms of the name of this trail and it sometimes felt as though the local Rotary club had been more successful in getting their way marks on the various wooden posts we passed along the way.  BAM seemed quite fond of the North Arden trail, whilst I preferred the officially sanctioned Centenary Way with it's way marks showing the symbol of Warwickshire; the bear and ragged staff (which you can also see on Warwickshire's flag).

Ansley Common to Robinson's End (2.4 miles/3.9 kilometres)

Anyone who's spent time in England this summer will know that it's been a pretty poor summer, weather-wise.  Cold, rainy and cloudy, our walks have felt more like autumn than anything else. However, it seems to have been a great summer for plants and our walk through the bean fields and meadows between Ansley Common and Robinson's End, saw us getting scratched to pieces by a range of brambles, nettles and crops, which seemed to have taken over the landscape in a scene reminiscent of Day of the Triffids!

BAM in a bean field

Wheat field and farm house near Robinson's End

This part of the walk involves getting around the main Leicester-Birmingham railway line and it was alongside the railway line that we found our flower of the day, the Rosebay Willowherb, also known as the fireweed.  

Rosebay Willowherb

At Robinson's End, we could see the suburbs of Nuneaton up-close, although it would still be a couple of hours before we made it to Nuneaton itself.

Robinson's End to Bermuda (2.8 miles/4.5 kilometres)

It was quite a zig-zaggy route from Robinson's End, through fields around Seeswood Pool, where we had to pause for a minute to let a local farm pass in his tractor, mid-crop chopping.  There was quite a sad memorial on Astley Road, for a group of young people who were killed in a car crash in November 2000, another local drama for us to bear witness to.

Coots on Seeswood pool

Turning right off Astley Road, we followed the trail across the driveway that leads to Arbury Hall, the historical home of the Newdigate Baronets.  Unfortunately, we couldn't see the Hall from the driveway but, by all accounts, it's a pretty impressive Elizabethan building in Gothic style.

Arbury Hall driveway

Continuing as far as the Nuneaton Academy, we turned right again and followed the path through farmland, all the way to Harefield Lane and the curiously named suburb of Bermuda. A former pit village, Bermuda was named after local aristocrat, Edward Newdigate, who became Governor of Bermuda in the 1880's.

Bermuda to Nuneaton (2.9 miles/4.7 kilometres)

The last three miles into Nuneaton took us over the A444 Coventry to Nuneaton road, through the Bermuda Industrial Estate, along the bottom of the Hill Top estate and across the Turn Over Bridge, where we turned left to follow the Coventry Canal towards the town centre.

Turn Over bridge near Nuneaton

We didn't quite know what to make of Nuneaton - it's a strange mixture of abandoned buildings and cautious new developments. They're building a new railway stop at Bermuda Park and there seems to be a lot of investment in the Nuneaton to Coventry line, so it's only a matter of time really, before Nuneaton itself becomes a suburb of that bigger city which is, after all, a mere nine miles away.

Coventry Street, Nuneaton

United Reformed Church in Nuneaton

The Victorian novelist, George Eliot, was born in Nuneaton and we found a George Eliot statue in the town centre.  George Eliot lived at a time when rural England was experiencing a great deal of change, due to the Industrial Revolution.  In many ways, her novels champion the simplicity of country-living and deal with themes that are as relevant today, as they were more than a century ago.

Statue of George Eliot in Nuneaton

With our city-dwelling clocks ticking, myself and BAM struggled to find somewhere that we could eat at 5pm in Nuneaton, but we finally settled on the Istanbul Grill, a really convenient cafe not far from Nuneaton station and six-thirty train back to London.

Access for wheelchair users

Path through crop fields

To be honest, very little of this walk would be accessible to wheelchair users and certainly not in a continuous way, although we did occasionally walk along country lanes. 

Hartshill Country Park is a nice place to visit and there is some accessible walking there which might suit wheelchair users.

Image credits: 

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them under the following Creative Commons license:

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Winchester - Kings, Watercress and White Campion

"Wintonia" by Zacwill16 

Winchester was one of the original 'chesters' that we had in mind, when we undertook to visit all of the 'chesters' in Britain, almost five years ago!  Since then, we've visited 33 'chesters' and we're just over halfway through our list!  By that reckoning, this project will keep us busy until 2020 at least!

Winchester is a wonderful place and it was with no small amount of excitement that we boarded the busy Weymouth-bound train at Waterloo station, on a Friday evening after work.

Whilst the other passengers loosened their ties and slipped off their high heels, after another busy week in the office, we contemplated the passing greenery of north Hampshire and wondered about the delights that Winchester would have to offer.

Lodgings and Victuals

Our first stop was for dinner at The Chesil Rectory, Winchester's oldest house.  It's a wonderful building, dating back to 1450 and the food is divine! Accommodation is quite expensive in Winchester, so we'd decided to economise by staying at the Premier Inn on Easton Lane.  Not quite as old as the Chesil Rectory(!), but a nice place to stay all the same - as with our Leicester experience, everything went smoothly, the staff were very friendly and we had a good night's sleep.

The Chesil Rectory in Winchester

I've never had to reserve a table for breakfast before, but it was worth it, for the gorgeous breakfast served up by The Corner House on Parchment Street. It's quite a trendy little cafe and soon filled up with hungry tourists looking for Eggs Alresford and home-made waffles!

Breakfast at the Corner House

Bishop's Sutton to New Alresford (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

We decided to start our walk in the countryside and make our way back in to Winchester, as this is an easier way to manage things and make sure we have time for dinner before jumping on the train back to London.  We took bus number 64 from Winchester bus station and this follows the Alresford Road, along the top of Temple Valley, with good views of the South Downs on the way.

We jumped off the bus at Bishop's Sutton and set off up Whitehall Lane for the 1.5 mile walk to New Alresford.  Walking along Whitehall Lane reminded me of a time, many years ago, when I spent six weeks picking apples near a village called Swanmore, in the south of Hampshire.  It was a stark contrast from the damp October days trudging along the Droxford Road, to this pleasant early summer walk along Whitehall Lane.

Bishop's Sutton

Whitehill Lane near Bishop's Sutton

We very quickly found our 'flower of the walk' on Whitehall Lane, as there was an abundance of silene latifolia or white campion named after the Greek satyr Silenus - the flower, like the Greek deity, is a symbol of the forest and, despite the rather cold summer we're having this year, we'll always remember our Winchester walk as a bright green one, with incredibly foliage and trees reaching across the lane ways over our heads!

White campion

I was also quite interested to see a field full of solar panels - a new kind of 'plant' that wasn't around when I first explored the Hampshire countryside!

Solar panels near Whitehill Lane

New Alresford to Ovington (1.2 miles/2 kilometres)

We didn't actually visit New Alresford, but skirted along the bottom of the town on Tichborne Down. New Alresford is famous for its watercress and we walked past several watercress beds on Spring Gardens.

Watercress beds near New Alresford

New Alresford is also the meeting point for the Wayfarer's way, a 70-mile drover's track from Walbury Hill in Berkshire to Emsworth on the Hampshire coast and St Swithun's Way, a 34-mile path from Winchester to Farnham in Surrey.  We were mostly following St Swithun's Way to Winchester, although this overlapped at times with Allan King's Way, the Itchen Way and Pilgrim's Way!

Wayfarer's Walk

We've been on Allan King's way before, as it links Portchester to Winchester and we walked the first ten miles of this path back in November 2010.  It does feel a little bit like assembling a giant jigsaw with these 'Chester' walks, or perhaps we're connecting ley lines together, as part of some noble pre-historic project!

Ovington to Itchen Abbas (2.2 miles/3.6 kilometres)

Ovington is a sleepy little hamlet, in the middle of a small wood and we got our first real sight of the Itchen river, as we passed an attractive-looking riverside pub called the Bush Inn and crossed a couple of footbridges to reach the neighbouring hamlet of Itchen Stoke.  After Itchen Stoke we crossed the river again and made our way along Lovington Lane until we got to Yavington Farm.

River Itchen near Ovington

At Yavington Farm we left the lane and climbed up a small hill through wheat fields towards Avington Park golf course and a road which took us across the river again to the village of Itchen Abbas.  We got a glimpse of the 16th-century Avington Park House in the distance and there was an interesting breed of sheep in the field below the golf course, which I believe were Black Welsh mountain sheep.

Countryside near Ovington

Black Welsh Mountain Sheep

Itchen Abbas is another pretty village, with a lovely old mill - apparently it was the inspiration for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies.  

Itchen Abbas to Easton (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

From Itchen Abbas we followed a small lane behind the church and then a pathway along the bottom of the villagers' gardens, across the lane at Chilland and through a meadow leading to Martyr Worthy.

It was interesting to pass through a field with pigs in it, as we haven't seen many pigs on our walks, although we've seen cows, horses and sheep-aplenty!  We also passed through a herd of white bullocks that looked rather picturesque as they cooled off in the Itchen River.

Pig near Itchen Abbas

White bullocks in the River Itchen

At Martyr Worthy, we started seeing the first obvious signs of the Pilgrim's Way, another path that starts at Winchester and follows the ancient Pilgrim's route from Winchester Cathedral to the grave of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

Pilgrim's Way sign post at Martyr Worthy

From Martyr Worthy, we headed downhill and crossed another footbridge over the River Itchen to get to the village of Easton, a wonderful place full of thatched cottages, where we had a refreshment stop at the village shop, basking in the afternoon heat.

Cottage in Easton

St Mary's church in Easton

Easton to Winchester (2.9 miles/4.6 kilometres)

We zig-zagged through Easton, past the Cricketer's Arms and St Mary's church, before following a path through some fields, leading to the M3 underpass and the dubious outskirts of east Winchester, made up in equal part of industrial estates, homeless camps and teenage drinking spots!

M3 underpass between Easton and Winchester

Arriving in Winchester, we found that the sun was shining gloriously and people were strolling along the High Street and having picnics in the gardens in front of the Guildhall.

Winchester Guidhall

We were quite interested in Hamo Thornycroft's statue of King Aelfrid, that stands in Winchester's Eastgate and it reminded us of the former glory of Winchester, which was once capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex.  Actually, Winchester has a very long history and was the capital of the Belgae Celts, even before the Romans came along and made it one of their main settlements.

King Aelfrid by Hamo Thornycroft

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Winchester had strong connections with the Roman fort at Silchester, as well as a couple of 'chesters' we haven't yet visited, Chichester and Dorchester-on-Thames.

Buttercross in Winchester

We continued to contemplate the map of Roman Britain as we treated ourselves to some standard 'pub grub' at the Bishop on the Bridge, before making our way uphill to the station and our train back to London.

63 miles to London

Access for Wheelchair users

BAM on the path from New Alresford to Ovington

The walk, the way that we did it, jumps between country lanes and riverside paths, so would not be completely accessible to wheelchair users.  An alternative, accessible walk could be created by sticking to the country lanes only, although there might be some difficulty getting over the Alresford Road to Ovington.  

By skipping the Itchen Stoke bit and following Lovington Lane out of Ovington, you could pretty much continue all the way to Easton on the left-bank of the River Itchen. Wheelchairing on roads, even quiet ones, can be pretty dangerous, so I would follow this route with care.  

Winchester itself is a very pretty place and I'm sure that there would be enough wheelchair-accessible paths around the city to make a visit worthwhile.  

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to reuse them, according to the Creative Commons license:

- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share alike
- Non-commercial