Alton: Town and Downs - A Birthday Bimble along the Byways

For January, a jaunt into the heart of Hampshire, an area where the distinctive deep downs are divided by swift-flowing streams and where villages cluster in the valleys, some of them not a mile apart, while on either side the undulating uplands seem to stretch away for miles. Many of these villages boast an ancient church and a historic pub amid the handsome manor houses of brick and cosy cottages of timber frame. A timeless tranquility touches all, including the tarmac trackways we'll be taking, but excluding the seventeenth-century Sun Inn at Bentworth where your pub lunch will be on the leader (or at least £10 of it if there are over 20 of us), as it'll be a big birthday for him.

The sights:

Bentworth: An extensive parish with a good number of fine houses set atop a hill. St Mary's Church is predominantly C13 inside and Victorian restoration outside. The nearby rectory (now Mulberry House) is very elegant, 1810. Hall Place is C15 and The Sun Inn (our lunch venue) dates from the early C17. 

Grave of George Cecil Ives: poet, penal reformer and homosexual law reform campaigner, George Cecil Ives (1867-1950) lived in the village. He had a brief affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and by the time Ives met Oscar Wilde he was campaigning for the end of the oppression of homosexuals, a campaign which he termed 'The Cause'. He founded both the Order of Chaeronea, a secret society for homosexual men, and with Magnus Hirschfeld the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology. He was the inspiration for the Victorian gentleman thief Raffles.

Shalden: An attractive hamlet of manor houses and farm cottages. Church of 1865. The Manor House itself is C16. The lane through the village is framed by pretty flint walls.

Alton: A prosperous market town and dormitory, well-served by frequent trains, independent shops and characterful inns. Much Georgian building in the High Street. The River Wey has its source in the town. St Lawrence Church is mostly perpendicular gothic, C15, but the tower is Norman and retains some original painting and striking if crude sculpture.

'Sweet Fanny Adams': Her name and epithet soon became used as a euphemism and as naval slang for mutton and any meat of dubious provenance, but the Victorian public were revulsed by the brutal murder and dismemberment of Fanny Adams, aged 8, by solicitors' clerk Frederick Baker on the 24th of August 1867. The water meadows where most of her body parts were found is on the itinerary (unless too wet) and her grave is in Alton Cemetery near the church.

Dogs:

I love having dogs on my walks and this walk is suitable for them. There will be some roads to walk along and fields with livestock. A dog off the lead must be obedient.

The route (click the link to see it at the Ordnance Survey website):

Heading southwest from the station, we'll walk through the centre of Alton, then, heading northwest, take an alleyway to lead us out of the town. We'll cross the A339. If it has been very wet, we'll not use the path through Ackender and Bushy Leaze Woods to Beech but use Medstead Road instead. We'll walk through Beech, heading southwest, then turn north over Bittle Copse Down. Walking southwest again along Wivelrod Road, we'll then head north and then northwest to go to Bentworth, using Tinker's Lane. After walking through Bentworth and Summerley, we'll go to the pub for lunch. After lunch we'll walk back through Bentworth and pick up, at Ham Farm, a byway and footpath heading east to Shalden. At Shalden we'll turn southwards along Southwood Road and Brick Kiln Lane which will take us back to Alton where a walk through the water meadows, if not too wet, will bring us almost back to the station.

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(Picture credits: Farmland, Bentworth: Photo © Andrew Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Tinker's Lane, North of Wivelrod: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); St Lawrence, Alton: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Amery Street, Alton: Photo © David960 (cc-by-sa/2.0); Downland near Beech: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Downland south of Bentworth: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Tinker's Lane south of Bentworth: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Village Street, Bentworth: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Farmland, Shalden: Photo © Andrew Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Shalden Lane: Photo © Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); All images are copyrighted but are here credited to their copyright holders and are licensed for reuse under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA/2.0.)