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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| Bishop's Sutton |
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| 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!
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Countryside near Ovington |
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| 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.
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| Pig near Itchen Abbas |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Cottage in Easton |
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 63 miles to London |
Access for Wheelchair users
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| 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
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