We began the 100-mile South Downs Way at the end of January 2024, so adding a fourth national trail to the three already under way!
The SDW stretches from Winchester to Eastbourne. Both the National Trails website and the South Downs Way website envisage it taken in this direction, from west to east. But, for some perverse reason, the official guide book takes the opposite view.
We decided to begin in Winchester, not least because we can expect a friendly reception from Tracy’s relatives in and around Eastbourne.
We had wanted to set out on Tracy’s birthday, arriving in Winchester that morning by train. We planned to walk to Exton, where we would stay the night, arriving at East Meon around lunchtime on our second day.
But ASLEF had other ideas, calling a regional strike on the very day we wanted to travel. So we went to Winchester a day early, in the afternoon, staying our first night there and using our first evening to explore the Town.
ASLEF was already working to rule, and the train we had hoped to catch was cancelled. The next service was faster though, so we caught up much of the time.
On day two we completed the 12 miles to Exton, staying our second night and celebrating Tracy’s birthday, before walking the seven miles to East Meon on the morning of our third day.
From East Meon we caught a bus to Petersfield Station and, from there, the train home.
Because some of the countryside surrounding the SDW is remote, with scarce public transport, we shall be relying more often on overnight stops. This means carrying significantly more kit, but we must also keep our backpacks light enough for comfort.
We are fast learning what is essential and what can safely be left behind.
Winchester
We had booked a room at the Winchester Premier Inn, located about a mile from the station, which cost a mere £48.
Had we been better organised, we might have preferred the Winchester Travelodge, equally cheap and only a stone’s throw from the start of the SDW.
By five we were ready to venture back into the city centre. Having picked up some ‘yellow label’ sandwiches from M&S for next day’s picnic lunch, we devoted the next couple of hours to wandering the streets.
Winchester is a small city with some 50,000 inhabitants. It is located 60 miles south-west of London, beside the River Itchen.
There were significant Iron Age settlements hereabouts, and it was a tribal centre before the Romans established it under the name Venta Belgarum. By the Third Century this was one of the largest towns in Roman Britain.
In the early Saxon period it was renamed Witanceaster. The original cathedral was established by the mid-Seventh Century.
Late in the Ninth Century, King Alfred the Great remodeled the City, and the construction of the present cathedral began in 1079, under Walkelin, the first Norman Bishop of Winchester. It was significantly enlarged and rebuilt over succeeding centuries, especially while William of Wykeham (c.1320-1404) was Bishop. He also founded Winchester College in 1382.
The prominent City Cross was probably constructed in the Fifteenth Century, but several of the statues it contains were added subsequently.
There is also an impressive Victorian Guildhall, constructed between 1871 and 1873.
Jane Austen died here in 1817 and is buried in the Cathedral. John Keats was resident for part of 1819. Other (relatively) famous alumnae include Jack Dee, Colin Firth and Baroness Warnock.
We stopped for a drink in the Royal Oak, whose sign proclaims it ‘the oldest bar in England’.
This is a doubtful (even contentious) claim and Greene King, which owns the pub, clearly prefers a more acceptable formulation: ‘the earliest building in England to house a bar’.
A prominent notice inside says the building was a wedding present from King Ethelred (the Unready) to his spouse, Queen Emma of Normandy. It was bestowed in 1002. But the present building probably dates from the Fifteenth Century. Whether it was a public house before the Seventeenth Century is moot.
We stayed only a short while, for we had booked a table at The Overdraft, for craft beer, fat burritos and loaded fries. All of these we enjoyed, despite restricting ourselves to one further drink, in view of the next day’s challenges.
Winchester to Exton
Our sobriety was justified by the 06:30 alarm. I made Tracy a cup of tea and duly presented her birthday card.
But, little more than an hour later, we were outside Josie’s, our chosen breakfast supplier. Their morning coffee and cooked breakfasts were excellent, and they even filled our flasks. I was very impressed indeed.
It was a dry but overcast morning.
We made a slight detour to enjoy the Cathedral in daylight before making our way to the official starting point, somewhat oddly located in the front yard of the City Mill.
Unfortunately, the gates were closed at this time of day, so we have been forced to omit the first few metres of the SDW!
After the obligatory photographs, our next task was to cross between the busy rush hour traffic to the other side of the bridge, from where steps descend to the riverside.
We followed the path down towards College Walk, taking the opportunity to sneak a look at Wolvesey Castle, once the residence of the Bishops of Winchester. The surviving wing of the adjacent baroque mansion, dating from 1684, now serves as the Bishop’s residence.
It took us some time to clear the remainder of Winchester, heading past the Black Boy public house, across the B3330 and along Petersfield Road until it narrowed to a footpath.
Fresh from our encounter with a Grand Randonée on the North Downs Way, we spotted this sign on a lamp-post.
It refers to the St James Way, a 68-mile route from Reading to Southampton which connects with the ‘Camino Ingles’, running from the coast of North-West Spain to Santiago de Compostela.
Taken together, they are said to replicate the route taken by English pilgrims, who were inclined to start at Reading Abbey because it housed a relic purporting to be the hand of St James. They would walk to Southampton, catching a boat across to the Spanish coast before completing the journey to Santiago on foot.
Soon we crossed over the M3 and found ourselves heading across fields to Chilcomb. This village possesses a church with Twelfth Century origins, an Eighteenth Century manor house and this rather fetching tree house.
We passed the entrance to the MoD’s Chilcomb Range, used to train the armed forces, and then began our climb towards Cheesefoot Head, catching sight of Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium far below.
Cheesefoot Head (etymology unknown) is, first and foremost, a large hill, reaching 173m above sea level.
It is part of the 1250 acre Matterley Estate. Near the summit one finds Matterley Bowl, invariably described as ‘a natural ampitheatre’. It was formed after the last Ice Age when melting ice eroded the chalk beneath.
In June 1944 thousands of Allied troops congregated here, shortly before the D-Day landings, for an address by Supreme Commander Eisenhower.
They also enjoyed army boxing matches and, Joe Louis, then World Champion but serving in the US Army, reputedly boxed an exhibition match here – one of almost 100 exhibitions he gave during his wartime service.
However, the facts are elusive, so this story may be apocryphal,
More recently, several music festivals have been held at the site.
We stopped on a bench near a SDW signpost for morning coffee, watching the scudding clouds and a woman who seemed to be engaged in some form of surveying.
The route took us just below Cheesefoot Head, through an area known as Temple Valley. We strode beneath an impressive avenue of beech trees and began to notice several Red Kites hovering above.
Soon we had joined a more substantial track, which eventually passed through several farm buildings. Here we stopped to admire a tiny Firecrest hopping about in the bushes, and spent some time trying to take his photograph.
Almost immediately we encountered a posse of men, dogs, cars and land rovers embarking on a pheasant shoot. We speculated how much the participants had paid for the privilege.
After a long tramp across bleak and rather featureless farmland, we eventually arrived at the A272 and, crossing it, passed through the Holden Farm Campsite, where the Café was closed for the winter.
We noticed a milestone informing us that we were still five-and-a-half miles from Exton.
We decided against taking lunch on the handy benches here, hoping for a more attractive site further on, but the next stretch was muddy and largely unwelcoming.
Soon afterwards, we emerged on to the Beauworth Road, and passed through the southern part of that Village.
In 1833, while playing marbles in a nearby field, four small boys discovered a hoard of several thousand bronze coins, minted just after the Norman Conquest.
The pub here, now called The Milbury, is said to have a well some 300 feet deep. There is also a treadmill, 12 feet in diameter, which once drew up the water in an 18-gallon barrel.
The pub was closed, but we hoped it might have benches outside available for our use. No such luck.
Eventually we found a large tree trunk beside the footpath, now running adjacent to Wheely Down Farm Lane, and here we stopped for sustenance.
Some deer were grazing in the field below.
Resuming after lunch, we left the road, continuing along the edge of several fields towards the Beacon Hill National Nature Reserve.
We passed a notice board listing plant names to conjure with: ‘…yellow rattle, restharrow, eyebrights…’
These in turn attract several species of butterfly.
The SDW shares part of its route hereabouts with the 625-mile long Monarch’s Way, specifically the section from Charmouth to Shoreham.
We paused at the top of Beacon Hill before beginning our descent into Exton, enjoying a final coffee break while admiring the view below. An unknown bird sang to us from a nearby tree.
It was a few minutes after two. We had told our B&B that we didn’t expect to arrive much before four, and three was the earliest we could arrive, so we needed to kill some time. I couldn’t understand how we had completed almost 11 miles so quickly!
A signpost said we had 1.3 miles to go, along a permissive bridleway, and eventually we were ready to stroll downhill.
Exton
Exton sits beside the River Meon, a 21-mile chalk stream disgorging into the Solent. It is one of a series of villages so placed. The A32 follows the River hereabouts, but Exton is predominantly on the opposite, west bank.
The Village looked wealthy and well-kept. We admired St Peter’s and St Paul’s Church as we passed by, originally Thirteenth Century, but restored extensively in the Nineteenth Century. Several of the surrounding cottages also date from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
We were staying at Crossways, a modern B&B in a self-contained annex, close to the A32. Downstairs there is a hall and a kitchen diner, upstairs a large bed-sitting room and a bathroom. It cost us £130 all told.
Cookies and chocolate brownie squares awaited us on the kitchen table. The kitchen was well stocked with breakfast items, and we were encouraged to take anything we didn’t eat in the morning to make up a picnic lunch.
Sue, our landlady, had very kindly booked us a table that evening at The Shoe, a popular gastropub in the Village, so we could celebrate Tracy’s birthday in style.
We began with glasses of sparkling wine from the nearby Exton Park Vineyard, before both plumping for Goats Cheese and Beetroot Salad followed by Pork Belly. Tracy concluded with Banoffee Foule, while I opted for a Boozeless Affogato.
The table next to ours was also celebrating a family birthday – it seemed a family tradition to come to the same place every year.
Exton to East Meon
Since we had only to walk another six or seven miles, we weren’t in a hurry to depart early next morning. And a lie-in was much appreciated after our early start the day before.
We helped ourselves to a two-course breakfast: muesli and fruit followed by bacon and scrambled eggs on toast. We also made sausage sandwiches for our picnic lunch.
It was 10:30 before we were ready to leave.
Our landlady advised us that the SDW walkers’ route out of the Village was flooded where the River Meon had burst its banks, so we took the alternative riders’ and cyclists’ route. This took us away from the River before rejoining the walkers’ route some way along a disused railway line.
This is now part of the 11-mile Meon Valley Trail, created in 2014.
It once carried a line some 22 miles, from Fareham to Alton, which opened in 1903. Before the First World War, it was possible to catch a through train from here to London Waterloo.
In 1938, Louis MacNeice alluded to this service in his extended autobiographical poem ‘Autumn Journal’:
‘And I am in the train too now and summer is going
South as I go north
Bound for the dead leaves falling, the burning bonfire,
The dying that brings forth
The harder life, revealing the trees’ girders,
The frost that kills the germs of laissez-faire;
West Meon, Tisted, Farnham, Woking, Weybridge,
Then London’s packed and stale and pregnant air’
But the last passenger trains departed in 1955, and the final goods service in 1968.
Soon we had begun the steady climb towards Old Winchester Hill, though located some 11 miles from Winchester. There was an Iron Age hill fort here, and the area is also a national nature reserve.
We stopped beside a memorial to the crew of a Stirling bomber and the soldiers and crew aboard a Horsa glider it was towing. Both crashed on the night of 4 April 1944 killing thirty-three men.
The SDW encircles the Hill, some way below its steepest reaches, eventually joining the road. Then it suddenly begins to descend towards Whitewool Pond and the Meon Springs Fly Fishery.
We were delighted to find an open café here – Zed and Bolly’s – where we stopped for (in my case) much-needed caffeine, having calculated that we just had enough time in hand.
Continuing for a while along the road, we eventually turned off uphill beside Hen Wood. Then, at the junction with a path called Halnaker Lane, left the SDW via a footpath that took us to Coombe Road and so to East Meon.
We headed directly to All Saints Church, parts of which also date from the Twelfth Century. It has a celebrated Tournai Font, akin to the one in Winchester Cathedral.
We found a bench in the churchyard where we ate our sausage sandwiches while waiting for the 67 bus service to Petersfield Station.
The bus arrived promptly and we were home by late afternoon.
TD
March 2024
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