Downton to Woodgreen

We woke early to a lovely sunny morning, but a weather forecast for quite a lot of rain, from the hour including 10am and for most of the rest of the day. Tom had already headed out to work, but Helen had the day off to spend with us. We decided to have a quick breakfast, then head out walking straight away to make the best of the weather. There was some rain whilst we were walking, though not as much as during the afternoon, when there was a torrential thunderstorm, and we had a lovely walk through undulating countryside and up onto the New Forest. We encountered New Forest ponies, donkeys, cattle – and a fox.

From Helen and Tom’s house we walked through Downton, crossing the various braids of the River Avon (the signposted route of the Avon Valley Path follows the river to the centre of the village, but the route shown on the OS map goes straight past Helen and Tom’s house, so that was the one we followed! All the way along The Borough and High Street we were following a man and his daughter, who had obviously been shopping at the Co-Op. We continued to follow them right onto Moot Lane, past Downton Moot Gardens (created in the 18th Century around the ruins of 12th Century earthworks) and the Downton Doctors’ Surgery. We kept expecting the father and daughter to take a different route, but they didn’t, and the daughter in particular kept looking behind us, clearly wondering why these strange people were following her. Even when we crossed the road to take a track out to the village, they crossed the road too; though they headed for the house next to the track whilst we continued up it.

We climbed out of the village crossing various crop fields, and Helen pointed out that the route essentially climbs all the way to the New Forest. The countryside was actually undulating so there were downs as well as ups, but we were undoubtedly climbing on average. As we walked alongside a field of maize (sweet corn), we could just make out, over the top of the crop, that Downton Church was coming into view, and after more ascent, we could actually see back to Salisbury Cathedral.

We said hello to a couple of men who were walking the other way and they said what a good day it was for walking – clearly they had not looked at the weather forecast. Near some cows, we reached a section of the path which Helen and Tom have found to be confusing in the past, but knowing that we needed to keep straight ahead though some trees, rather than continuing across open ground to the left as a signpost appeared to indicate, enabled us to spot another footpath sign confirming the correct route.

At the top of the hill, there were good views over the Avon Valley. We reached a kissing gate with a group of signposts on the other side. These indicated the distances to the start and end of the Avon Valley Path, and told us we were crossing the country border into Hampshire at the same time entering the New Forest. I don’t recall ever being welcomed to a new county when on a footpath previously (countries are different).

We descended to Hatchet Green and made a short diversion to see the attractive Green itself (though it was more brown than green), then we retraced our steps to the path, passing a red public telephone box, unusually still in use as a phone (these days the boxes seem more commonly to contain books or defibrillators). We continued along the road which, somewhat irritatingly runs almost parallel with the drive to Hale House, but the road was pleasant enough and very quiet. We were occasionally in the shade of the trees which lined the road, which was useful when the rain started.

After about a kilometre the road wiggled and we turned off onto a footpath, still running parallel with the drive to Hale House, but we were now much close to it and could see the grand house through the trees. We passed Hale Church (a peculiar but not unattractive building) and turned left onto a country lane, then took a track past paddocks; it was now raining quite hard, though it soon lessened again and it had stopped by the time we got to the car.

We said “hello” to a woman who had been visiting the horses and continued on, past another pretty green, with horses grazing, to the village of Woodgreen, where the delay to traffic was now being caused by two families of donkeys ambling along the road. We turned left out of the village and passed through a delightful wood (with the Woodgreen Cemetery off to the left) and so back to the parked car.