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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday, 1 March 2025

Saturday Walk: Alton to Farnham

Map-based walk
11.5 miles / 18.5 km
(add 1 mile for a pub lunch in Bentley)

This is part of St Swithun's Way, a long-distance walk from Winchester to Farnham.  There are no SWC walk directions/gpx, but the route is shown on Ordnance Survey maps and may even be signposted in places.  

Trains:  0954 London Waterloo, (10:01 Clapham Junction), arrives at Alton at 11:09.  If you just miss the train, take the 10:00 service from Waterloo and change at Woking.  Return trains from Farnham at xx:28/xx:58. Buy a day return to Alton.

Lunch: Either an early stop after 4.3 miles at Lower Foyle for The Anchor Inn (Butcombe Brewing Co), or continue to Bentley, roughly half way into the walk.  Head into the village to find The Star Inn.  From the pub you could also head on about another mile to Bentley station for an early finish.

The route finishes by passing through Farnham town centre where there should be plenty of choice of refreshments.


2 comments:

Kevin said...

https://www.walkingenglishman.com/ldp/stswithunsway.html

gouldman said...

Did this walk the day before it was scheduled. #brilliant-sunshine-all-day a very nice route which felt slightly longer than 11.5 miles. Starts and ends with a Waitrose. Three beautiful churches, all open, one with its own pond and another with some ancient Yews. Many beautiful homes set in lush countryside along the way, in particular around the village of Froyle. The centre of Farnham is pedestrianised and quainter than it seems from the station. The walk could be shortened by taking a direct route into Farnham across fields, instead of looping around the town on county lanes.