Clarendon Way
This delightful walk, advertised as 24 miles but, according to our tracking, more like 28, links Salisbury and Winchester cathedrals, and thus links from the Avon Valley Path to the South Downs Way. It's a good length to walk in a weekend; well that's the theory! In its journey across Wiltshire and Hampshire, it crosses rolling downs, with excellent views as well as passing through woodland and through the Test Valley, crossing several braids of the classic chalk "stream" of the River Test. In the direction in which we walked the path, it starts in the historic cathedral city of Salisbury, a few miles from the village of Downton, where our daughter and her family live, and ends in the ancient cathedral city of Winchester, which was once the capital of England and seat of King Alfred the Great. The route passes through some delightful villages, including Pitton, West and Middle Winterslow, Broughton and King's Somborne.
The Clarendon Way takes its name from Clarendon Palace (shown above), a Norman royal hunting lodge situated close to the route just a few miles east of Salisbury. The route is described on the Hampshire County Council website and there is a lovely description of the walk from Alice Jones, who blogs under the name "The Girl with a Saddle Bag " and walked all the way from Winchester to Salisbury in one day. The route is signposted, though whether you'd be able to follow the entire route using signposts is debatable. We are also unsure, as was Chris Heaton, whether the symbol on the signs is meant to be a Norman helmet (as the Long Distance Walkers Association seem to think) or a bishop's mitre. As always, we used both paper Ordnance Survey maps (the route starts on Explorer Sheet 130 (Salisbury and Stonehenge), crosses Sheet 131 (Romsey, Andover and Test Valley) and finished on Outdoor Leisure Sheet 32 (Winchester)) and the OS Maps App on my phone, whilst Richard tracked our route on OpenStreetMap using myTracks.
We had glorious walk from Salisbury to King's Somborne on 18th September 2021, and had intended to finish the path the following day. However, that was not to be, and we completed it by way of two enjoyable circular routes, each after a visit to see Bertie and co, in November and December 2021. We thus saw the path in summer, autumn and winter, not bad for a short route like this.
