Exton and Old Winchester Hill

Old Winchester Hill

We met up with our friends Viv and Giles for another of our regular walks, this time in the lovely Meon Valley. We started from the Shoe Inn in Exton and walked up the road to cross the A32 and skirt the edges of Meonstoke.

We walked along a short stretch of former railway (the Meon line from Alton to Fareham), then along a lane which soon became a track leading us into open country. We climbed up to reach a small road with views to the south over a gentle valley, with rolling hills beyond.

We now continued on an anti-clockwise course and took a path descending down the side of a field, with a fine view of Old Winchester Hill opposite on the other side of the valley (see the photo at the head of this post).

We climbed up a lane and then a track from the bottom of the valley, passing a bijou shepherd's cottage and a farm. We were surprised by the emergence from the hedgerow of what I have since (I think) identified as a juvenile Red-Legged Partridge. The view looking back from the slope of Old Winchester Hill was also impressive.

As we climbed the Hill we were surprised to see a small vineyard to our right. I haven't been able to find out anything about it however. At the top the extent of the earthworks which make up the iron age hill fort became clear. The Hill is also a Nature reserve and later in the year we could have expected to see a good selection of butterflies and orchids.

We now followed a track descending gradually into the Meon valley. We ignored any temptation to take the Monarch's Way to the north. I hadn't previously heard of the Monarch's Way, but the Long Distance Walkers Association website reveals that it traces the somewhat tortuous route taken by Charles II after his defeat by Cromwell in 1651 and runs from Worcester to Brighton, via Shrewsbury and Dorchester. The whole route is 615 miles in length is described as the longest inland trail within England.

We crossed the Meon line again ...

.. and followed a flower-covered path beside a small tributary of the Meon.

The path was flooded at the end, but we successfully broached some barbed wire to reach the A32 again - only to be nearly blown back into the wire by a large lorry which passed uncomfortably close to the edge.  From here we walked along the lane into Exton and headed straight to the pub without exploring the village. Still, we had done so when we walked from Exton to Warnford a couple of years ago. That post has a nice photo of Exton's restored 13th century church.

From: Pocket Pub Walks in Hampshire by Nigel Vile (Countryside Books). The version in the book starts from the Bucks Head in Meonstoke. Unfortunately, it was closed today, hence the start instead from the Shoe Inn in nearby Exton.

Map: Explorer 119 (Meon Valley, Portsmouth, Gosport & Fareham).

Conditions: sunny, hazy, hot.

Distance: about 6.5 miles.

Rating: four stars.

Flowers of the day

Lots of Celandines and also these Purple and White violets. The former were growing in some profusion on the slope of Old Winchester Hill.