Backup Only

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, 12 September 2020

Saturday Walk - West Wiltshire Downs: Tisbury Circular via Alvediston (Clockwise!)

Length: 26.0 km (16.2 mi) [shorter walk possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: 738m; Net Walking Time: ca. 6 ½ hours
Toughness: 9 out of 10 
Take the 09.20  Exeter St. David’s and Bristol Temple Meads train from Waterloo (Clapham J. 09.27, Woking 09.46), arrives Tisbury at 11.06.
You have to be in the Exeter part of the train (and in the front three coaches of that).
Return trains: 17.01, 18.01, 18.27, 19.03, 20.01, 21.01 and 22.02.

This is the blurb describing the anti-clockwise original walk:
"This walk heads south from the Vale of Wardour through the southerly parts of the West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is spectacular walking country with some breath-taking views. The full walk reaches the hilltop boundary with the Cranborne Chase AONB (with views all the way to the coast, around Bournemouth and Poole). You’ll find picturesque villages and atmospheric pubs in the beautiful undulating countryside, as well as a wooded Iron Age hill fort site and plenty of dry chalky U-shaped downland valleys. The middle part of the walk especially leads through – or around the rim of – several very pretty coombes.
The walk starts with a gentle ascent out of Tisbury across fields but features a few short and sharp ascents later on as well as three more prominent ascents, spread out through the day, before descending back into Tisbury, a remarkably unspoilt village." 
Note: this walk is written up in both directions, with both versions available in separate pdfs. Be sure to print the clockwise version if you want to walk with the group. 

Shorter Walk:
A Shortcut after lunch, limiting the effort to 8/10, is described.
Bus number 29 (Shaftesbury to Salisbury)  stops outside the lunch pub in Ebbesbourne Wake (13.49, 15.34, 16.49, 18.04) and in Alvediston (13.45, 15.30, 16.45, 18.00, approx. 40 mins journey time).
Bus number 26 (Salisbury to Tisbury) stops in Swallowcliffe, St. Peter’s Church at 15.38 and 17.18 (6 minutes journey time). 

Lunch: The Horseshoe Inn, Ebbesbourne Wake (9.7 km/6.1 mi) into the walk. Open 12.00-15.00. Food served 12.00-14.00;
The Crown Inn, Alvediston, (16.3 km/10.1 mi) into the walk. Re-opened in 2018 after long closure, as a tea room initially but might have opened as a pub again (the www is a bit inconclusive, but there are recent Tripadvisor reviews).
Tea en route: The Royal Oak, Swallowcliffe. (21.5 km/13.4 mi) into the full walk and 16.5 km (10.3 mi) into the short walk. Open all day every day. This usually makes for a wonderful tea stop, before the last serious ascent of the walk. But as of Sep 1 it has not re-opened yet  after the Covid-lockdown!
Tea in Tisbury:  Tisbury Fish & Chips, Beatons Tearooms and Bookshop, The Beckford Bottle Shop, Genius Coffea, The Benett, The Boot Inn (for all these: see the pdf for details).

For walk directions, map, height profile, photos and gpx/kml  files click here. T=swc.250.a

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any thoughts on the chances of lunch at the Ebbesbourne pub? Cheers.

Thomas G said...

It's a small pub, but with some outdoor tables, and we'll get there for about 13.30. I have not booked a table.

Thomas G said...

n=13 walkers, incl. a first-timer (courtesy of Ibex Walking Club), in perfect walking weather, namely w=sunny-with-a-light-breeze.
It's nothing new that I am a great fan of Tisbury and Surrounds, but I think it's fair to say that today no one had a bad word to say about the walk, the route, the scenery, the company, the fine far views (Salisbury Cathedral's spire from a couple of spots, Bournemouth/Purbeck Hills/IoW from the Ox Drove, plenty of very scenic Downs elsewhere), or the lunch stop The Horseshoe Inn, who have made really good use of their large garden to be Covid-secure, and presented us with fine food and beer.
Admittedly, there were two diffcult arable fields to negotiate (one with massive root vegetables [Swedes?] without any path, ie an ankle breaker, the other corn/maize with only the faintest of paths initially, then none), but that were the negatives, as far as I can see. Even the trains ran on time...
Most of the fast group had a drink at The Bennet, about 8 in total bought nourishment from the chippie. 8 on the 19.03, the rest on the 20.01.