Robust Rambles

Section 39

Droxford to Bishop's Waltham

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 39  Out

Droxford to Bishop’s Waltham

Map: OS Explorer 119 Meon Valley

Distance: 4 miles/ 2 hours

Start: The Baker’s Arms; parking just down the hill in the village centre at the church entrance.

Comment: A pleasant section with considerable variety and good views. There are some excellent woodland paths. Waymarking is very patchy so keep a close eye on maps and instructions. There are stiles.

With the Baker’s Arms on your left, walk down the hill looking for metal barriers by a footpath between wall and hedge off on your right. Turn right along this path to a road. Turn left on the road and at the next crossroads, turn right up the road to the school.

Just past the school the road becomes a farmtrack. Keep up this to a stile by a metal fieldgate and continue on a grassy track between open fields. Eventually reach trees at the foot of a steep slope.

Bear right through a metal kissing gate and follow a woodland path up through trees to reach open downland. Continue along the top of the treeline.

Reach and go through a metal kissing gate and drop right down the field edge following the field edge for some way. Arrive at a tall hedge on your left. Here turn left up a footpath through trees.

Follow this for some way. When the wood ends keep on by a hedge on your left above a racing circuit. Eventually drop down right, then up left to a stile onto a road by the circuit entrance.

Cross to an enclosed bridleway opposite. Follow this to a corner where it turns left and becomes a pleasant woodland path with excellent views. Reach a junction with a cross track coming steeply up from the right.

Ignore this and go straight ahead on a feinter path which begins to go downhill (this is a permissive path rather than a Public Right of Way). Follow the path steadily downhill. At the bottom, a narrow path goes off right down into the field. However, stay on the woodland path as is rises and continues along the edge of the wood for ¼ mile.

On reaching a junction of ways, look for a stile down on your right. Cross this into a rough field and continue along the edge with trees on your left. Cross a stile halfway. Finally, pass a house and abandoned stables, to follow a concrete drive to a road in Dundridge.

Turn right on this road. Keep right at a junction and soon pass the Hampshire Bowman pub. In 150 metres reach a sharp right bend. Here turn left into the corner of the first field on your left (ignore several gates). Go up the side of the field with trees on your right. At the top go through a gap in to the next field and immediately bear diagonally left to cross the centre of the field.

At the far side go through a gap into a downward sloping field. Continue in the same direction to a gap in the hedge just left of the far bottom corner (if crops block the path, turn left along the field edge and go all the way around and down the edge to the gap in the hedge).

Go through and keep across the adjoining field in the same diagonal direction. Go through another gap in the far hedge. This time turn left down the field edge to a road.

Turn right on the road for 50 metres then left through a wooden kissing gate into a pasture. Go straight up the side of the pasture with a fence on your left to a wooden kissing gate in the top corner.

Through this go up the bank a few paces to a path. Turn right along this path following the edge of the wood for ¼ mile. Ignore side paths.

At the end of the wood reach a wooden kissing gate. This is the entrance to Dundridge Local Nature Reserve. Go through and keep on in the same direction. Pass a seat. Just before a second seat turn left up through bushes to a wooden kissing gate.

Through this turn right along a fence line and field edge.

Continue through a metal fieldgate and go on diagonally across a neglected field to a gap in  the far hedge by houses.

Go through a metal kissing gate to the start of two paths. Turn right along a path enclosed between wooden fences. This soon enters a close of houses. Bear left down to a junction.

Turn right to immediately reach a Y-fork. Bear right into Butts Farm Lane, and in a few paces left down a grassy footpath. At a junction in front of trees, go forward onto a narrow flinty path going steeply down through trees to a main road. Turn left along this road.

Keep down for some way passing the entrance to the parish church and on down to a road junction. The building on your right is a former pub and now the Waltham Tandoori Indian Restaurant (special Thali lunch recommended !).

This is the end of the section. The main town centre with shops and restaurants is 200 metres along the road on your right.

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 39  Return

Bishop’s Waltham to Droxford

Map: OS Explorer 119 Meon Valley

Distance: 4 miles/ 2 hours

Start: The Waltham Tandoori Indian Restaurant; car parks further into town centre.

Comment: Woodland walks and pleasant byways make a straightforward and easy return walk. Small section of roadwalking.

Stand at the crossroads with the Indian Restaurant on your right. Cross the main road and turn left a few paces. Turn right through metal barriers onto a straight footpath going down through overarching trees.

At the bottom reach and cross a road. Go through a wooden fieldgate to enter The Moors country park. Immediately turn left on a grassy path and walk across to the far side. Reach a stile, kissing gate and wooden fieldgate in trees. Cross the stile.

Go up to a path and go forward along the edge of the wood. Ignore all turnings right down into The Moors. Reach a wooden kissing gate into a field. Go through and bear right to still keep along the edge with trees and bushes on your right.

At a set of wooden gates, go ahead through a wooden kissing gate onto a restricted byway. Reach a set of metal gates. Go through and bear left up the lane. Soon join a drive and continue uphill to a main road. Turn right for 50 metres; there is a pavement.

Look for a gravel track off left just before a bend and lay-by. Cross with care and go up it. At the top, turn right on a road. This soon becomes a track. Keep along, ignoring side turnings.

Between two bends, at the end of a hedge on your left, turn left onto a footpath and go diagonally right across a field to trees at the far side.

On reaching the trees turn left up the side. At the top bear right into a field and then left along the top edge to a gap in the next corner by a cattle trough. Go through and continue along a field edge towards trees.

At the trees, ignore a cross path and go straight ahead across a lawn to a stile. Cross and go directly towards a house in the distance.

Exit onto a crossroads at Upper Swanmore. Cross to the road opposite and go forward past a house on your left. In a short distance turn left on a broad gravel track. Follow this between houses then on between fields for ½ mile.

Finally emerge onto a road. Turn left uphill for 200 metres. Ignore a side road off right. Keep on up then begin a long drop downhill. On approaching the bottom, with a righthand bend visible, look carefully for an unmarked path off left down a couple of steps. Go steeply down through trees to a field edge.

Turn diagonally right across the corner of the field to the end of a hedge on the right. Turn right again along the side of the main field with the hedge on your right. Follow the field edge all the way round, past allotments, to reach the far opposite corner.

Leave the field onto the road end by Droxford school. Go down the road, cross a crossroads and keep on to a junction in the village centre with the car park opposite. Turn left, uphill, to the Baker’s Arms and the start of the section.