Winchester to Warnford

We had travelled to Winchester by train yesterday and had a lovely meal in the evening with Helen and Tom at Kyoto Kitchen. I've eaten in a Japanese restaurant once before (but that was with someone who has lived in Japan) and Richard has been to Japan for work (but then he had local hosts); by ourselves we're hopeless, so we opted for the "Taste of Japan" multi-course set menu, washed down with a bottle of Koshu wine, described in the menu as an authentic local alternative to Muscadet or Pino Grigio, and we weren't disappointed. We then had a good night's sleep at Saskia's B&B. Don't be put off by the fact that the B&B is on a busy road; we had a room at the back which was quiet and pleasant, if a bit quirky. Saskia was actually in Copenhagen with her sister, leaving the B&B in the capable hands of "Aunt Angela". Angela cooked us a lovely breakfast (her scrambled egg was particularly good) then together we worked out how to use the credit card machine, a new addition since Saskia last left Angela in charge. As we left, workmen were working on the outside of the house; I assume they were painters and decorators, but whatever they had turned up somewhat unexpectedly.

We bought lunchtime provisions for a few days from the Co-op almost opposite the B&B then walked down to the centre of Winchester. To be honest I was a bit disappointed. The cathedral is rather a squat building; I'm sure it's nice inside but we didn't have the time for a proper tour and £8 seems a bit steep for a flying visit. The rest of the city centre was OK, but not as special as I'd expected. Other walkers we met later on the South Downs Way had loved Winchester, especially for the literary connections, so perhaps we just went to the wrong bits!

When the Rambling Man started the South Downs Way in 2010 he had difficulty finding the route out of Winchester so we stuck closely to the description in our guidebook, so much so that when Richard spotted a sign saying "South Downs Way" down a path near the River Itchen I said "oh no, that's the cycle route" and we continued on the road across the bridge, with the City Mill, complete with attractive cherry tree, to our left. Note that about a fortnight after our visit an official start/end point of the South Downs Way was unveiled at the City Mill, and I think the route then follows the sign that Richard had seen - oops! Meanwhile, we continued on the old route, turning right onto Chesil Street at a busy little roundabout; where our instructions talked about a car park there is currently a building site, but the the hoardings on this served the useful purpose of telling us that "Chesil" is a contraction of "Cheesehill", something that had never occurred to either of us. Other than that, the instructions were good, and in any case the locals seemed very friendly, with a several people giving us unsolicited directions to the South Downs Way. A couple out walking two dogs were particularly helpful and, in contrast to what is implied by both the Rambling Man (who admittedly walked the trail back in 2010) and the 2015-copyright edition of the guidebook, there were South Downs Way signs all the way.

Thus it was that we left the roads of Winchester behind and walked along a tarmacked path between trees to a South Downs Way sign telling us it was 99 miles to Eastbourne (so that's one mile done...) then another sign which both Rambling Man and the guidebook claim to be the first SDW sign on the path, even though it isn't. We continued over the M3 and now we really were in open countryside. We turned left and then right into a large field with lovely views to the downland ridge and back to the M3 snaking up a hill in the distance.

We could see the attractive St Andrew's Church in the distance, set in fields to the south of the hamlet of Chilcomb, and when we reached a road I popped across it and into another field (albeit by another footpath) to get a better photograph. At the same time Richard was discovering a sign to indicate that we were being rejoined by the South Downs Way "Ridders' Route" (yes, spelt like that) and whilst we were photographing the sign a friendly man in a 4 X 4 stopped to ask if we needed directions. Phew, I'm pleased he hadn't arrived a few minutes earlier when I was trespassing, possibly on his land!

We continued along the lane which climbed up through Chilcomb, a pretty place, passing a couple of women out walking their dogs. At the end of the lane, half a mile or so above Chilcomb, we turned left onto a track which continued to climb onto an open hillside. At a junction of tracks where we took the right-hand option to skirt Telegraph Hill, the guidebook told us we had our last view back to Winchester; there were actually better views back from slightly further on, and we also spent some time trying to work out an odd shaped building with satellite dishes closeby, visible down the hill to our left. It turns out that this is the Winchester Science Centre with a Satellite Teleport closeby

When I'm out on a day-long walk I sometimes have vague ideas in my mind about where we might stop for refreshments and today I had pinpointed Cheesefoot Head as a possible lunch spot. This is shown on the map as a viewpoint with car park, and the guidebook informed that me that it is where General Eisenhower addressed the troops in the early summer of 1944, before the D-Day landings. However, other than crossing the busy A272, there wasn't much to see, and it was too early for lunch, so we kept going, now on a path through attractive trees, along the edge of Great Clump.

At Keeper's Cottage we turned right onto the track of King's Way. About a mile along, just before the track crosses Rodfield Lane, we found a log on which to sit for lunch. Several cyclists passed us as we were eating, then a woman with a dog came along, with the dog showing a little too much interest in our food! We continued straight ahead over Rodfield Lane, and passed the attractive Ganderdown Farm before doing something of a dog leg and descending to the A272 - again! After crossing the main road the track took us past Holden Farm and, eventually, past Windmill Farm to a minor road.

We turned right and almost immediately left, with lovely views to the north of the road on which we now found ourselves, and the Bronze Age burial mound of Mill Barrows to the south. We'd expected a stretch of road walking at this stage, but there was a nice path running through the woods just to the north of the road, so we took that instead, still admiring those views.

When you see "Wind Farm" on a map it conjures up a certain image, but in this case the reality was a farm, presumably in a windy place, not a load of turbines. We followed a track past the farm, being joined by first the Monarch's Way and then the Wayfarer's Way, and passing Lomer Farm, the site of the medieval village of Lomer and then Lomer Cottage. None of these were very exciting, but there were some lovely bluebells near the somewhat dried up Lomer Pond.

We were now getting close to the Beaconhill Beeches car park, where we planned to leave the South Downs Way and instead to follow the Monarch's Way down to Warnford. The last little bit of the route to Beaconhill Beeches is shown as going along a road, but there was a permissive path along the field edge nearby. We couldn't actually access Beaconhill Beeches directly from the permissive path, so we had to go slightly further on and then walk back along the road, but we had plenty of time so it didn't matter.

There were no benches in the car park but we sat down for a rest on the roots of an old tree. Given that we were not expecting to be able to get into the pub in which we were staying in Warnford until 5pm, we decided to walk on to the trig point on Beacon Hill, which is on the South Downs Way but not on our planned route for today There were good views from here, down to Exton and south to the Solent and Southampton Water with, I think, the Isle of Wight beyond, and Fawley Power Station acting as a landmark.

We retraced our steps to the Beaconhill Beeches car park and turned onto the Monarch's Way on an attractive section down from the ridge, with the valley of Well Bottom to our right. We reached a road at Wheely Down Farm, now a forge, with a magnificent whale made out of stone and metal. We followed the road down to Warnford, our destination for the night because we hadn't managed to find suitable accommodation in the more conventional first overnight stopping place of Exton.

When we saw Helen and Tom, was it only yesterday?, she had reported that her Department's last ramble had included a section on the Monarch's Way including Warnford, and that Warnford had watercress beds. Indeed it does!, and in inspecting the first of these, just as our minor road joined the A32 through the village, we noticed two faded "South Downs Way" signs. What?! Later research revealed that the South Downs Way came this way until around 2009, and that further rerouting in the Meon Valley is likely. We turned left, still on the route of both the Monarch's Way and the old South Down's Way, past more watercress beds and over the River Meon, a lovely clear stream just by the watercress beds (and obviously feeding water into them) and complete with a young swan eating the waterweed in the stream.