Crab Wood to Winchester and return

We didn't expect much from today's walk. According to the map, we were only about a mile and a half from the outskirts of Winchester, and it looked as if most of the walk would be a meander around and through the city, a view reinforced by the comments section of Girl with a Saddle Bag's blog post on the walk which confirmed that some people think the Clarendon Way is best walked from Winchester to Salisbury, because the distance from the countryside to the centre of Salisbury is shorter. Our daughter and son-in-law (who alerted us to the delights of the Clarendon Way in the first place) reassured us that most of this leg was pleasant, then they proceeded to describe a section of difficult route finding through a rather down-at-heel housing estate. So it was with some reluctance that we dragged ourselves away from their house - and our little Grandson - on a rather grey Sunday morning. As we drove east through Salisbury and Stockbridge and towards Winchester there were a few spots of rain but then sufficient blue in the sky to "make a pair of sailor's trousers". We left the Stockbridge-Winchester road and took a narrow (mostly single track with or without passing places) lane through Sparsholt and back to Crab Wood car park (SU433293) which is where we'd got to last time we were on the Clarendon Way.

From the car park we could have followed Sarum Road (presumably once the old route to Salisbury, but now a minor road on which the car park entrance is located) all the way to Winchester, but the Clarendon Way goes by rather more circuitous route, looping first to the north and then to the south. After a short walk along Sarum Road, with Crab Wood on the left and open downland views on the right, we passed Crabwood House and Beechcroft Farm Shop and Tea Barn (recommended by Helen and Tom but closed for the winter) and turned left onto Lanham Lane. It was along here that I began to appreciate how much I had underestimated the attractiveness of today's route. We initially kept Crab Wood to our left, and we may have been able to use one of the many paths through the wood to get here from the car park, but it didn't matter as Lanham Lane is very minor. Beyond Crabwood Farm House and a few other buildings all with Crabwood in the name, the road petered out entirely, becoming a rather muddy but attractive track, with pretty views over rolling downs to our left. As we looped back round towards Sarum Road, we passed a collection of transmission masts on the right and followed the edge of the Royal Winchester Golf Club (busy with lots of groups of golfers who all appeared to be male! ) on the left.

We crossed Sarum Road and started the loop to the south of it, with the next little section being along a rather busier road, because it is obviously used as a cut through to the B3040, one of the main routes into Winchester. We had also now reached the outskirts of the city, though we still had countryside views and the houses were rather grand; clearly not the down-at heal housing estate! With the benefit of hindsight, it also appears that we may not have been on the correct route of the Clarendon Way; we were on the route shown on our printed OS Explorer (1:25000) map, copyright 2015, and at the time of writing this is also the route shown on the OS Maps App when displaying at 1: 25000. However, slightly further on, I realised in zooming in and out, that a different route (which cuts across fields to Pitt and then across the South Winchester Golf Club to Oliver's Battery and thereby avoids this awkward section of road) is shown with the OS Maps App is displaying at 1: 50000. Research on our return home showed that the route we didn't use is the one shown on the Hampshire County Council website. Come on Ordnance Survey, get your act together - showing different routes depending on the scale of a map is really not what I'd expect of the organisation so proud of the fact that they have 225 years of experience of mapping the nation. Ah well, the (probably incorrect) route on our map was fine. We crossed the B3040 then turned right along a slightly less grand residential road, but still perfectly pleasant.

We were now in the area of Winchester known as Oliver's Battery, and we passed Oliver's Battery itself, an Iron Age earthwork which acquired its name following the English Civil War, during which the area became associated with Oliver Cromwell's siege of Winchester in 1645. It is considered more likely to have been where the besieging Parliamentarian forces camped than the site from which weapons were launched, because cannons of the time would have insufficient range to make this a useful launch point. We continued through the residential area until we reached the edge of the city with Compton Down ahead of us. Here we turned left, though we initially took a dead-end path through allotments rather than a narrow (and therefore muddy) path between fences, which were separating us from a selection of park homes, probably all that anyone on a reasonable budget could afford to buy in Winchester. We passed a school and crossed the A3080 then found ourselves on the delightful Whiteshute Slope, with rather misty views over the city. Even better, there was a bench so we stopped for a snack, my first mince pie of the season (thank you Helen; that sugar fix was much appreciated).

We could see from the map that, lovely as the walk along Whiteshute Slope was, we weren't quite on the route of the Clarendon Way, which follows Whiteshute Lane, very slightly to the south-east of the Slope. We cut through to Whiteshute Lane, an enclosed and slightly sunken track, perfectly pleasant if not quite as nice as Whiteshute Slope. Eventually the route diverged further from Whiteshute Slope and we found ourselves on another common with the view now in the opposite direction, including to St Cross Hospital and St Catherine's Hill beyond. We crossed the railway and a short walk through a residential area brought us to the entrance to St Cross Hospital and we walked down past the Hospital; "The Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty" to give its full name, founded in the 12th Century, creating what has a claim to be England's oldest charitable institution. Whatever, it is a fascinating place, in a glorious location. We continued to the water meadows of the River Itchen and now headed north, between the river and a mill chase, with St Catherine's Hill to our right and the buildings of Winchester College to our left.

We turned towards the city centre, around Winchester College. Fairly soon we went through the gateway into the Cathedral Precincts, with a growing number of people heading toward's Winchester's Christmas Market. By the time we reached the market stalls, it was absolutely heaving. We knew that we needed to get to the other side of the Cathedral, but our first attempt at doing so led to a dead end; our only option was to negotiate the crowds so it was on with the face masks and on we went. Soon we were back at the point in front of the Cathedral where we had set off on the South Downs Way, on a rather different day in April 2017. The presence of today's Christmas Market and the crowds made it all rather more memorable.

We decided to stop here for lunch before heading back to the car by the more direct route. There were people sitting on all the benches, but we found a good perch on a wall. Unfortunately, it started to rain as we were eating - not at all what we had expected from the weather forecast. We didn't expect it to last long, so we didn't initially put our overtrousers on, but the rain persisted, so on our way out of the medieval city, we used the shelter of the West Gate to don full waterproofs. Our route back to the car, through the shopping centre then past the Hospital and the University and then straight along Salum Road, was very much shorter (only just over half the distance as the outward leg) and also faster because we were following roads. Given the weather, this was just as well. Eventually, after we'd passed the entrance to the Royal Winchester Golf Club, the rain stopped and we were rewarded by some nice views. We had an excellent drive back to MIlton Keynes, mostly in daylight.