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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.

Sunday 16 September 2018

Sunday Walk – Heritage Open Day in Winchester

Extra Walk 15a – Winchester Circular (with river shortcut)
Length: 15.3 km (9.5 miles). Toughness: 4/10

09:35 Weymouth train from Waterloo (Clapham Jct 09:45), arriving Winchester at 10:45.

Trains back from Winchester are at xx:23 and xx:45.

This walk is an attractive mixture of hills and water meadows, and the notes mention lots of interesting things to see in and around the ancient city of Winchester. There are several free events this weekend as part of Heritage Open Days so when you get to the top of St Catherine's Hill I suggest switching to the ‘River short cut’ (or even the 8.9 km ‘Tourist short cut’), giving more time to see what you can find in the city at the end.

The River route rejoins the main route before lunch so the lunchtime pub is still The Bridge in Shawford, which serves food all day. The Tourist route loops back to the city before then, but there will be many possible places there for refreshment.

Links to the walk directions, OS Map and GPS routes are on the Winchester Circular walk page.
T=swc.15.a

3 comments:

PeteB said...

n=10 0n this walk who set off in w=fine-and-sunny weather. The group quickly fragmented in Winchester's lovely ancient streets with one walker inadverently doing the walk in reverse (no names no pack drill). After climbing St Catherines Hill 4 of us decided to do the longer version of the walk in the mistaken belief (essentially mine) that this would takes us awy from the traffic noise. The trail was a bit overgrown and in many parts you are walking with 3m high hedges either side of you so no views at all. The short-cut track to the main road in para 53 is now clearly marked as private and not a right of way- but that did not stop me anarchist that I am.

8 of us met up at the excellent Bridge pub with one taking a bus from there before the rest of us set off on the return loop to Winchester with some lovely vistas along the way.
Five of us stopped at the wonderful Hospital and Church cafe where I had a sumptious moist and fluffy lemon curd confection and a pot of tea which provided 3 cups and all for just £4. (Went a bit Jay Rayner there.....). This walk is worth doing just for this
cafe alone. We ambled onward to Winchester lingering at a book stall and with a couple visiting the cathedral before catching a busy train back to London. Lovely excursion on a perfect early autumn day out although I noted with melancholy on the tube home the rapidly approaching dusk.

Unknown said...

Hi guys, would have enjoyed coming on this walk but it's a very early start for a Sunday an 08:25 train! Any chance of having some walks that start later please?

PeteB said...

Err......it was a 09.35 train perfectly timed to get us to the lunch pub at an appropriate time....