Sherfield on Loddon

View from the back of Sherfield church

I fancied something local, but different - an increasingly difficult proposition. I managed to find this walk on the Hampshire CC website. The very nicely produced downloadable leaflet contains three walks and this is number 2: from Sherfield Park to Sherfield village.

The walk starts at Sherfield Park, a new Georgian style housing development on the A33, but you quickly cross the road into fields. Emerging out of the fields, you turn into a fabulous green lane, Moulshay Lane ...



... and walk along here turning off to join Wildmoor Lane, a tarmaced country road. I found the directions hard to follow and failed to locate the correct turning off point, but I made it to Wildmoor Lane in the end, by plodding across a large field.

You then follow this lane in a long (mile and three-quarters) semi-circular meander, in part through a golf course, which eventually brings you back to the A33. The lane is quite quiet, but this much road is never going to make for a good walk.

You cross the A33, follow the old road into Sherfield, cross the 35 acre village green and go along another lane, then turn across fields. Quite soon you reach St Leonard's church.



The church, with its imposing tower, it is in quite an odd location, beside Sherfield Court, the Georgian manor house, hidden behind its high walls - but with hardly another house in sight - and a mile of so from the village. The church dates almost entirely from Victorian rebuilding of 1866 and 1872. A few medieval windows remain of the original building.

Leaving the churchyard, you walk back down the A33.

Distance: five miles.

Map: Explorer 144 (Basingstoke).

Rating: two stars. Way too much road. Would have been one star, but for the delightful Moulshay Lane.


Flower of the day

I was delighted by this monumental Teasel.