Robust Rambles

Section 38

Hambledon to Droxford

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 38  Out

Hambledon to Droxford

Map: OS Explorer 119 Meon Valley

Distance: 4.5 miles/ 2.5 hours

Start: The Vine pub; very limited on road parking or ask at the inn if intending to visit. The Village Hall car park is next door.

Comment: There are a lot of country roads and not so many footpaths in this area. This section is mainly on the Wayfarer’s Walk with ‘WW’ waymarks. Hambledon church has a long history and is well worth a visit. The walk is very varied with woodland paths contrasting with cross field tracks. There are some climbs, some stiles and excellent views.

With The Vine pub on your left, walk off up West Street. Pass Walnut Tree Cottages (site of a former pub) and continue to the village centre, by the shop, with High Street turning up left.

Turn left up the High Street and go forward into the churchyard (do stop for a visit). Keep to the main uphill path, passing the church tower on your right.

At the top of the churchyard, turn left on the Wayfarer’s Way, between a high flint wall and a car park on your right. Soon go through a swing gate. Bear right, to continue along the bottom edge of a field with a fence on your left.

Go between houses to reach and cross a narrow road. Go down the side of a playing field to a main road. Cross and turn right for a few paces. Turn left off the road by a metal fieldgate and go steeply uphill. On reaching trees, turn sharp right on a narrow path by a wire fence.

At the top of a steep rise is a Y-fork. Bear right on the main, level footpath. At the end corner of the wood is another Y-fork. Here bear right, downhill, on a narrow path.

Soon leave the wood through a wooden kissing gate and cross a pasture to a copse at the far side. Find the path again and continue through the trees. At the end of the trees, exit through a wooden kissing gate into a large pasture. Bear slightly right, across to a metal kissing gate at the far side.

Cross a road and climb the stile opposite. Go down a broad track between fences. Reach a wood and bear slightly left to continue along the wood edge with a wire fence on your left.

At the end go through a wooden kissing gate to a cross path. Turn right on this to soon reach a Y-fork (the waymarking is rather confusing here). Go left, uphill, through a metal barrier. At the top of the rise, cross an open space, to continue on the WW on a pleasant path through trees. At the end of the wood the path meets a field and turns right, up the edge. At the top corner turn left, along the top edge, with a hedge on your right.

Where the hedge ends, go forward through a gap and on into a large downward sloping field. Continue across this field. At the far side go through a wooden kissing gate then on down a path enclosed between a fence and hedge. Go through a wooden kissing gate at the bottom and on, down a rough drive, to a road.

Ignore the footpath up steps opposite. Instead turn right down the road to Soberton village. Reach a main road and cross, by the village hall, to go up School Hill.

Just before The White Lion pub, turn right, down an enclosed path, by a flint wall. Eventually this joins a farm track and continues down to a road.

Do not go onto the road, but turn sharply left, uphill, over a stile by a metal fieldgate. Go uphill with a hedge on your left. At the top where the hedge and fence end, keep straight on, across an open field, to a stile by a metal fieldgate. Cross to a rough farm track.

Turn left and walk down past a house on your left to meet a road. Turn right a few paces, then left, through a wooden kissing gate, just before a mock Tudor house. Join an enclosed path and go along by a fence.

At the bottom, go under an old railway bridge and cross a stile. You are facing the end of a hedge. Bear to the left then turn right to go downhill under power lines with the hedge on your right.

At the bottom of the slope, turn right, by an old stile, onto a stony track with a hedge on your left. In a little way, go through a metal kissing gate, by a stream. Continue on, to a wooden kissing gate. Through this, turn left over a footbridge and go forward. Soon cross a second footbridge and wooden kissing gate and go up through trees.

Enter Droxford churchyard and follow a path of stone grave slabs to the far side. At a corner find a wooden kissing gate on your right. Go through this into a pasture. Immediately turn left to follow the field edge up to a stile by a wooden fieldgate. Over this reach a drive. Turn right a few paces, past the vehicle entrance to The Mill. Just right of the gateway is the entrance to a paved footpath with the river over on your right (signed The Mill Hut).

Turn up the path a very few paces, looking for a gap in the hedge on your left. Turn left through this onto a brick path and soon cross the gravel Mill driveway to a fenced footpath opposite. Turn right on this path, along by the vehicle drive, then swinging away up left. Follow for some way to emerge onto a main road.

Turn right to find the Baker’s Arms pub and the end of the section.

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 38  Return

Droxford to Hambledon

Map: OS Explorer 119 Meon Valley

Distance: 5.5 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Baker’s Arms pub; parking by the church in the centre of the village or at the pub if visiting.

Comment: The initial walk along the valley to Soberton church has several stiles, then climbs and descents across rolling countryside. Some road walking along country lanes. A short, rough section in horse paddocks at Webb’s Green Farm but then pleasant walking and views in excellent countryside. There are many stiles of varying quality.

With the Baker’s Arms pub on your left, go down the hill on the main road pavement. At the bottom reach the village car park. Here turn left through the car park and into the churchyard. Turn right before the church, to pass the church tower on your left and reach a black metal swing gate set in a wall. Go forward on an enclosed path.

In a little way, reach a metal fieldgate on your left opposite a path off right. There is a stile straight ahead. Cross the stile and keep on in this direction for ½ mile, crossing several stiles. Eventually, in the corner of the final field, drop down a bank to a metal kissing gate, onto a road.

Turn left along this road for 100 metres. Cross a river bridge, then go steeply uphill to cross a bridge over an old railway.

Immediately turn right off the road up steps to a stile on the left into an enclosed path between fence and hedge.

On reaching a stile bear left uphill across grass towards Soberton church. Pass this on your left. Do not turn left down the side of the church, but gently bear right as you continue down the grassy hill aiming towards a small stable in the valley below.

Cross a stile into horse paddocks. Bear diagonally right across to a second stile then on in the same direction to the bottom corner and an old gate out onto a road.

Ignore the sideroad off right and bear left on the road steeply uphill. Take the first turning left named Cole Hill. At the top, turn right, on a wider road. Keep on uphill, ignoring the first right, going downhill

Eventually meet a road coming steeply up from the right. Immediately past it, turn right over a stile by farm buildings. Ignore a footpath off left. Instead go straight ahead with a hedge on your right.

Continue for ¼ mile on a rough grassy path crossing several stiles. On approaching stables at Webb’s Green Farm, the path follows the hedge round to the left then crosses the entrance track to a broken pair of stiles by metal fieldgates.

Cross as best you can and then continue in the same direction as before down a field edge with a hedge on your right. In the corner go through a picket gate and on down an enclosed path. Through another picket gate wind down past a garden to emerge onto a road.

Turn left to a junction and left again up a side road. Immediately past a house on your right, turn right off the road into a field. Do not follow the hedge on the right, but bear diagonally left up and across the field parallel to a line of poles. Reach a stile in the far hedge.

Cross into a paddock and continue across to exit onto an asphalt road with a farmhouse on your left. Ignore the road off right and go straight ahead, past the farmhouse and outbuildings, onto a grassy path through trees with a pylon in the distance.

After a left/right bend, the path becomes a rough vehicle track. Soon reach an access gap into two field on your left. A row of trees goes straight down between the two fields. Find a feint path to the left of the treeline. Follow this down the line of the trees with a field on your left and power lines parallel in the distance.

Follow this overgrown bridleway for some distance. At the end reach a wood. Turn left on a clear track along the edge of the wood.

Follow this for some way. Eventually bear right under the power lines and continue out to a road. Turn right along the road.

Pass an old farmhouse on the left and continue to the next bend. Here turn left off the road onto an earthen track (currently temporally closed to vehicles). In 5 metres turn right over a stile into a field. Follow the hedge on your right up to the far corner.

Cross an overgrown stile by a metal fieldgate. Turn left on a road. Pass Hill View Farm looking for a footpath off right just before a house. Follow this rough path, tightly enclosed between hedge and paddock fence.

Cross a stile into a horse paddock then on over four more paddocks and stile to reach a field. Go straight up this large open field for ¼ mile.

Eventually pass a hedge off left and immediately bear left diagonally across the top of the field to a road. Turn right on the road steeply downhill. Pass a house and look for a footpath on the left over a stile by wooden fieldgates.

Go up a grassy track in woods. Keep over stiles to a T-junction. Turn right downhill into Hambledon village. On reaching a road, cross and go up West Street opposite. Soon reach The Vine pub and the start of the section.