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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 13 February 2016

Saturday first walk - Hampshire Downs

SWC Walk 68 - Rowlands Castle Circular
9.6 miles/15.5 km, 3 out of 10

This Hampshire walk in the western part of the South Downs starts off towards Stansted House along a 1-mile-long beech avenue, before heading north along the edge of Stansted Forest and across fields to the villages of West Marden and Compton, with particularly nice views from the downs on the short section between them. You can choose between the Victoria Inn in the first village and the Coach and Horses in the second for lunch. You return through more fields and woods, with a choice of pubs in Rowlands Castle for tea.

(You can shorten the walk by 1.5 miles by following the main walk directions until [4], then follow the Short Cut directions to pick up the main walk directions at [*] just after [7] in the main text.)

Trains: 9:45 Portsmouth & Southsea train from London Waterloo, arriving at Rowlands Castle at 11:21, or 10:00 Portsmouth Harbour train from London Waterloo, changing at Haslemere (arr 10:48, dep 10:55) to arrive at same time.

Return trains at xx46 (and extra service at 17:32)

South West Trains currently have a £15 return ticket offer, but you must buy this by midnight the day before.  Details here.


Lunch  Victoria Inn, West Marden, food served 12:00-2:30, tel 02392 631330.  The Coach and Horses, Compton, food served 12:00-2:00, tel  02392 631228.  The Village Shop and Tea Room, Compton, tel 02392 631144.  

Tea  A few pub options at Rowlands Castle: Castle Inn, Finchdean Road; Fountain, The Green; Robin Hood, The Green

Links  full walk details    walk instructions

T=swc.68

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely walk but muddddddd - yewk

Anonymous said...

n=16 on this walk weather w=overcast_but_little_rain. Plenty of mud underfoot, but some firm stretches. The Victoria Inn made us all feel welcome and although a little overwhelmed with food orders, most agreed food was good. Mr. Tiger arrived somewhat late having run into navigational difficulties with possible ambiguity in the instructions.
After lunch the group split in two with Lane MudWalker guided by GP3PO leading team A on a slightly shorter afternoon route. Team B lead by Ms. Rug headed off to Compton to check out the hostelries there. All in all a great day out but not a walk for those shy of mud!

Anonymous said...

In defence of this walk we did it last March and the wasn't any MUD. 2016 is clearly going to be a vintage year for the stuff. Get it while you can, summer is on the way.

Walker said...

Mud usually starts to dry in March, due to an increase in evaporation as the sun gets stronger.