Short walk around Upham

24th May 2009

When the sun gets up, when the clouds fly away and the wind drops, how can anyone stay indoors?

This was a short walk due to time constraints, it was somewhere other than the New Forest and it was lovely.

Upham is a little village lying within the boundary of the new South Downs National Park. All around the countryside rolls and folds like a gently swelling sea.

The best place to park is by the pond in the village, although given more time it is quite possible to walk to Upham from my front door.

On this particular Sunday there was a wedding taking place in the church. At the T-junction by the pond there's a farmyard, and in the farmyard were "parked" a large black barouche drawn by four black horses. The barouche was decorated with white roses and each horse had a white rose in the headband of its bridle. Also in the yard was a smaller chaise drawn by two white Welsh Cobs. The driver of the barouche was quite happy for me to take a picture of the assembly. The background of grain silo and barn is unfortunate but the horses and carriages are very picturesque.

The walk begins a little along the lane left of the farmyard, along Monarch's Way which is on a good path though farmland, at first between crops.

Now, there was a light breeze blowing. Only it was blowing in an unfortunate direction. A gentle breeze on a warm day is pleasant on the face. However, when it is blowing across a pig-farm the country scent can be a little - um - "sharp" in the olafactory sense.

Should anyone else care to follow this walk, it is worth bearing with the aroma of the sties for a few moments. Coming down the hill, the smell actually dies away and you can enjoy the amusement of trying to tell what is pig and what is wallow. They looked very contented lying about in the mud.

Beyond the pigs is a fence and stile and another hill, going up. Steeply. This area seems from the signs on the fence by the stile to be a conservation area maintained by the farm. The field is all long grass with the path running through it to a windbreak of trees and a further stile at the top. This is good exercise for the legs!

Over the next stile the Way continues down and up between cropfields and round through the farmyard to the road. The route now lies left along the road which has good verges for avoiding traffic.

Where the road bends, there is a waymarked path going off on the right had side of the road, through a thicket. The path is narrow and falls and rises with the contours of the land. The trees and hedgerows soon clear and there is a lovely view over Stephen's Castle Down across the countryside as in the first picture above.

A little further on there is a kissing gate on the left which gives on to Stephen's Castle Down itself, which is designated Access Land. The little path winds down the slope to another kissing gate and across what is termed on the map as a Gallop. There is a sign by the gate requesting dogs to be kept under close control through this area.

This brings you to a lane on the other side of which a farm seems to snuggle in the fold and there are one or two other cottages around the farm.

Turn left along the lane and watch out for rabbits. They were everywhere as I walked along here.

The lane comes eventually up to a road, Stakes Lane, and the route turns left along here. This isn't a terribly busy road but it is well to be aware of cars in both directions. They can generally be heard before they arrive and it is possible to keep well in to the side of the road. Fortunately it doesn't take long to reach the little lane that runs left off this road. The lane crosses another road that runs from Winchester to Bishops Waltham and then proceeds quietly along under trees and alongside fields, eventually arriving back in Upham.

However, even quiet tarmac lanes can pall and there are some other more interesting paths to tread. There is a green lane that runs through Bigpath Farm. I'd skipped the south eastern stretch of this path to go across Stephen's Castle Down. Now, opposite the Farm, I turned right and walked up past a couple of cottages and towards the top of a hill, with pleasant views either side through the line of trees. Just after the top of the hill is a footpath that goes off left past cow pasture and is fenced off from the animals. I chose to continue on, come out at the next tarmac lane, turn left past the farm houses, and left again along Woodcote Lane, which is another green lane. This winds back up the hill and across the slope near the top into woodland, emerging at last on to the road which, turning right, comes back down into Upham. The footpath mentioned before comes out just along here as well.

And thus was a couple of hours rambled away in pleasant surroundings (in spite of the few moments' reek of pigs) on a beautiful day. I shall be returning to Upham in the near future to walk the footpath over the hill by the cow pasture, and also to walk a route to Owslebury which skirts Marwell Zoological Park on the return stint.