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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 26 June 2021

Saturday Walk - Historic Salisbury, The Chalke Valley, some Wiltshire Downs and a field of poppies: Salisbury Circular

COVID 19
Track-and-Trace: please provide email address (preferred) or mobile phone number at the start
Rule of Thirty: for the foreseeable
 
Length: 32.3 km (20.1 mi) [shorter walk possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: 427m; Net Walking Time: 7 ¼ hours
Toughness: 7/10 
 
Shorter routes, reducing the length by 5.4 km or 7.2 km respectively, are described. 
Bus 29 Shaftesbury to Salisbury City Centre (10 mins walk from the train station) runs through the Chalke Valley and stops outside the lunch pubs as well as in the village of Stratford Tony (opp. Manor Farm), half-way through the afternoon (times at Broad Chalke: 14.05/15.49/17.05/18.20). 
Cutting out the outer loop of this figure-of-8 walk and turning back in Stratford Tony, reduces the length to 17.0 km/10.6 mi.
 
Take the 09.20 Exeter St David's & Bristol Temple Meads train from Waterloo (09.27 Clapham J, 09.46 Woking), arrives Salisbury 10.42. 
Return trains are on xx.47 and xx.21 to 19.21, then 19.33 (via S’ton), 20.26, 20.53, 21.26, 22.26.
 
This long walk explores the Chalke Valley in the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the South West of the quintessentially English Cathedral City of Salisbury. It leads out of town through the Cathedral precinct, past some of England’s finest historic houses and through the Harnham Hill suburb into open fields with far views over the Chalke Valley to distant Downs. The morning route then largely follows the Ebble River upstream in the Chalke Valley through several pretty villages in this picturesque part of Wiltshire, with three good lunch pubs and two community stores conveniently spaced out along the route.
Most of the climbing is left for the afternoon, starting with a steady ascent with splendid views into pretty coombes, from Broad Chalke up to an ancient Ox Drove on top of the Downs. A long stretch with more views from the Down into coombes and valleys follows, largely along the course of a Roman Road, before the descent back into the Chalke Valley, followed by an immediate re-ascent up another Down. A Drove Track with views into the Nadder and Wylye Valleys leads past Salisbury’s Race Course and through the steep Harnham Slope Nature Reserve to tea at Harnham’s charming Old Mill.
From there the route back to the station goes through the town’s Water Meadows and provides ‘Britain’s Best View’ (Country Life magazine): Salisbury Cathedral across the meadows. 
 
Lunch: The White Hart in Bishopstone (11.9 km/7.4 mi, pre-booking essential for food service, which is to 14.00, pizza available from 15.00-17.00) or The Queens Head in Broad Chalke (15.4 km/9.6 mi, food all day), but only on the full walk, as well as the Chalke Valley Stores Coffee Shop (closes at 14.00).
 
For summary, map, height profile, some photos, walk directions and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.254

2 comments:

Thomas G said...

The Chalke Valley History Festival is on this week (ticketed event), and we pass the site just after lunch in Broad Chalke. You may find some of the stuff of interest: https://cvhf.org.uk/

Thomas G said...

Not one poppy field, but two, in fact. The first one early on, off the route to the left as you exit S'bury's suburbia into the Chalke Valley, a fine visual appetiser to the day. We very much enjoyed the joyous green landscape of rolling hills and very pleasant downs, quiet villages and the often crossed or walked along clear chalk stream, the Ebble River. Some trout were spotted just after Bishopstone, an owl observed flying over one of the many hay meadows a bit later on, looking for food but not finding any. We reached the lunch pub in Broad Chalke exactly on time for the pre-booked table.
90 minutes later we sautered on, up along the track that leads past Church Bottom, where the Chalke Valley History Festival takes place. And that was a rather impressive sight, we thought: two large tents where crowds were listening to the big name speakers. All kinds of enactment groups from Roman to (inevitably) WWI soldiers, artillery shots could be heard as well, and a Ferris Wheel was there to top things off!
Up on the downs, we again struggled to locate the path in the first large arable field that is often not ploughed (I'll change the text to make that part easier), but after that it was easy going along well-ploughed paths along the old Roman Road, with fantastic views down scenic coombes and back into the Chalke Valley, and at times to the Cathedral's spire. Then through the second, rather large poppy field (which could be spotted from far from many points on the route) and onwards down and up through the valley and past the race course, and back into town.
The sun had been out all day and we all could have done with some liquid refreshments at The Old Mill in Harnham, just 10 minutes from the station, but we were on course for the next train without any haste, so we walked on.
19.21 train. A rather glorious day out.
w=sunny n=5