9.35 train from Waterloo (10.00 Woking), arriving 10.32
From Clapham Junction get the 9.27 Exeter train to Woking, arriving 9.47, to pick up the above train
* The walk directions also include plentiful historical and touristic notes on Winchester, including a guided tour of Winchester Cathedral, all of which you can also find on the home page for this walk. See the walk directions or home page of this walk for details of a shorter 6.3 mile walk if you want more time to visit these attractions
I have recently re-jigged this walk, removing a rather dull section along the edge of a golf course mid-morning, which was also becoming overgrown with scrub. In its place the main walk now takes the former alternative morning route through the very attractive watermeadows of the River Itchen. I have also added a small (optional) extra loop around the rim of the valley beyond St Catherine's Hill, which gives fine views of this Iron Age hill fort.
Lunch is in the pleasant Bridge Inn in Shawford - I have booked a table for six and we can adjust upwards on the day.
The afternoon takes you on a loop over farmed downland with fine distant views of Winchester Cathedral. You finish along more watermeadows, passing the ancient public school of Winchester College and the historic Kingsgate, to find a Christmas market in full swing in the Cathedral close.
Tea options include the excellent Cathedral Cafe, open till 5pm, or various nice pubs, plus plenty of other options: see the walk directions or home page for some hints. Winchester High Street is cheerfully decorated for Christmas.
The fastest trains back to Waterloo are at 17 and 48 past, taking 1hr. There is also a slightly slower (1hr 11 mins) train at 53 past.
The 17 past train also calls at Clapham Junction: or you could get the 31 past Cross Country train to Basingstoke (though these can be a bit unreliable and crowded...) and change there (arr 47, depart 57)
5 comments:
Can this walk be extended? Whilst it’s great to see 3 walks on offer, all being under 12 miles is disappointing. Across the two days no > 20km walk has been posted which I haven’t seen before. Thanks
Well, if you look on the map there are plenty of footpaths out to the south west of the morning route which could be explored. Or the path along the Itchen continues southwards to Eastleigh and ultimately Southampton.
Sorry there isn't any longer option this week, but I would point out a) I put my walk up first. It is for later posters to balance out the choices of the earlier posters, I would say... b) On balance more people like medium to short walks than long walks in this club these days but quite a number of walk posters still invariably post long walks. A comment I often hear from such posters is "Well, this is the walk I want to post and I don't care if most people don't want to do it". c) It is the earliest sunset of the year this weekend, so maybe the lack of a 20K+ walk is not so unreasonable.
Incidentally I see there are three longer options for the Dormans Circular walk, with distances up to 24km.
Yes I just saw this information on the PDF walk file. Thanks for letting me know
What a gorgeous day this was! W=Sunny, nice company and good scenery. Though I say so myself as the walk author, I thought this new iteration of the walk worked well. The views were grand and the riverside walk to Shawford very idyllic. Though I was reluctant to say so in the walk post, this makes a good winter walk because lots of the paths have firm gravel underpinnings, so mud was minimal.
13 emerged from the train and another was seen later, so n=14 in all. Winchester was super-crowded, particularly in the Christmas market by the cathedral (which we had to pass through on the outward leg as well as at the end), so group cohesion suffered a bit. I was lucky enough to be in a group of six or so (not always the same people) all day, however: I hope others also had a sociable time.
Two tables had been booked for lunch, but two who arrived early at the pub decided (incorrectly) that there was no room for them and carried on, one needing to catch an early train home. Five of us got our orders in reasonably quickly and received our meals in half an hour. Three others on the other table for some reason did not get to order (sorry, the pub was noisy and I could not hear the explanation). Two joined us for drinks.
One got the bus after lunch. Six or seven of us carried on. There was some pipeline work on the afternoon route whose net result was that a convenient gravel track temporarily replaced the usual bridleway. We crested the hill and there was the cathedral ahead of us in the valley.
At St Cross the Hundred Man’s Hall cafe looked open. It had a big OPEN sign on it. Except when we entered it, they said it was closed. Except two earlier walkers said they got tea there. But not cakes, because the cake selling part of the operation closed for the season on 31 October.
We carried on along the watermeadows in the last rays of the sun, having a brief look at the chapel above the Kingsgate when back in town. We then entered the Christmas market which was very crowded. Seven of us squeezed through to get tea in the cathedral cafe, intending to return to the market afterwards. But the enormous queue to get into the market area from this side put us off. I hear some others went to a place called Cafe Monde.
After tea five of us went in search of an alcoholic drink. All pubs were predictably packed, but in the end we managed to squeeze into the Westgate Arms, mostly having to stand but with some seats later available. We got the 6.17 train, elbowing a family with kids out of the way to occupy two sets of tables.
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