Wayfarers Way, Hambledon to Portsdown Hill

Date: 16 July 2011
Area: North of Portsmouth

Distance: 8.5 miles, 13.5km

Start: Hambledon

OS Sheet: Explorer 119

Grid: SU 6465 1504

Route

These notes are provided to enable the walk to be plotted on a 1:25,000 map.
The Wayfarers Walk is clearly marked on the 1:25,000 Map

Journey

Once again I’ve been down to Portsmouth to visit my mother in law and family, which also gives me an opportunity to go for a walk. While peering over the maps trying to work out a walk around the Hambledon area where I had done a couple of walks before I started this blog, I noticed the Wayfarers Walk. This starts way up in North Hampshire at Inkpen Beacon, the highest point in Hampshire and works its way down through New Alresford to Hambledon and on to Farlington / Bedhampton near where my mother in law lives, before going on to finish along the coast in Emsworth. I covered most of the Farlington Emsworth part of the walk in a blog October 2010 see HERE.

So on Saturday morning I caught a couple of buses to Hambledon and started walking south back to Farlington. Once I got myself orientated it was a short walk to the Wayfarers Walk, down a lane and up a short but steep climb through a flower meadow over Speltham Down.

It was pretty, but the flowers were just past their best, I wish I had seen them a few weeks earlier. Just over the top of the slope into the first of many fields the rain turned heavy and for twenty minutes the whole landscape became a watery, wind swept blur. After that it just rained without really stopping until I reached Portsdown Hill some 7 miles later.

Most of the walk was through or along fields, with, because of the rain, not much in the way of views and no photographs. For the most part the going was fairly flat. Between Hambledon and Denmead I actually met a runner and two couples walking dogs. Somewhere in this section I hit a field growing one of the two crops I most hate to walk through, Maize (corn on the cob). “As high as an elephants eye” is one thing but this was WET, dripping, drooping, slap, slop in the face in a malevolent green way sort of way. But least it doesn’t try to grab you like the other horror, oil seed rape, does.

Denmead is an old village that has expanded into a small dormitory town. It seems to be keeping its shops and pubs and looks a comfortable place. After a trudge through its northern parts I reached the village centre and found a nice coffee cum cake shop where I bought a big date flapjack. Passing through the southern bits of Denmead and across the golf course the rain persisted.

South of Denmead the going stayed pretty flat although the bulk of Portsdown Hill was evident in the distance. All the streams and ditches were swollen and the lanes I walked along or crossed were covered in puddles, thankfully there was little traffic. I kept hoping to find somewhere to stop for a brew, but there was no shelter anywhere. Passing through a stretch of woodland before turning east towards Purbrook Heath I listen with some trepidation to peels of thunder away to the west.

From Purbook Heath the path started to climb, finally getting steep as the path tracked straight up the hill along the back of a long row of houses. While this walk so far had been uninspiring this stretch was crap, literally, it was narrow with garden fences and walls to the left and a hedge, nettles and brambles to the right and all the way up there were piles of dumped grass, hedge cuttings, other garden detritus wood, brick, slabs, rubble and other rubbish. Going downhill there may have been a view but going up there was nothing. It was a relief to get out on to the road at the top of the hill.

From here I followed the Wayfarers Walk for about half a mile before reaching a viewpoint looking out over Portsmouth but even though the rain had stopped some thirty minutes earlier the views were poor. At this point I headed down the south face of Portsdown Hill and back to the mother in laws and a hot shower. The Wayfarers way continues along the top of the hill towards Bedhamton and on to Langstone Harbour.

This was not the best of walks due mainly to the weather, on a sunny day most of it would have been a bit more pleasant. From experience most long distance walks have less attractive bits, one has to expect that and I suspect (hope) for the Wayfarers Walk part of this walk was it, although I suspect it may include the section from where I stopped down to Langstone Harbour.

I’m already planning the next stage, New Alresford to Hambledon 16m, possibly in early September. I’ve sorted out the bus from Farlington to New Alresford, I now need to work out how I get back to the mother in laws when I finish.