Avon Valley Path

The Avon Valley Path is a 34-mile route that follows the route of the River Avon (or should I say, one of the River Avons) through Wiltshire and Hampshire from Salisbury to Christchurch. Our original incentive to walk the path came from the fact it passes right past our daughter and son-in-law's house in the attractive village of Downton.

I should probably point out that the river (sometimes known as the Salisbury Avon or the Hampshire Avon, to distinguish it from the River Avon which flows through Bristol, after also passing through Wiltshire) is considerably longer than the length of the walking route. The river has two  feeder streams which flow through the north of Wiltshire before joining at Upavon, from where the river continues across Salisbury Plain to Salisbury.  

Because the path follows the lower half of the river's path, it is a fair-sized waterway for the whole walk. However, we have also seen the river higher upstream, for example when visiting the delightful garden at Heale House. Despite all this talk about the River Avon, the path doesn't closely follow the river after which it is named. The compensation for this is a walk through attractive and varied scenery.

At the time of writing, we have walked about two thirds of the route, from Salisbury, through Downton, across a corner of the New Forest, and on through Fordingbridge to Ringwood. Our progress has been slow, partly because parts of the path flood in winter, so you can't really walk it all year round, and partly because, since the birth of our grandson in 2020, we have conflicting priorities when we're in the area - and that's  before you consider all the lovely walking possibilities to choose between.

The route is signposted with signs that are, presumably, intended to show an old-fashioned two-span bridge over a river. However, for the early part of the walk through Wiltshire, very frequently the sign is rotated making it look more like the number 3 or the Greek letter episolon. Aside of this, so far the signposting has been a bit hit and miss - good in places, missing in places, and misleading in places. Add to this the fact that on at least one occasion we have (rightly or wrongly) ended up following a route which was not quite what was shown on the OS map (though, as always, we carried the OS Explorer Maps - Sheets 130 [Salisbury and Stonehenge] and OL22 [New Forest] on this occasion), and you'll see that our use of OpenStreetMap on an iPhone was close to essential for this walk.

First leg of path