Time Out Country Walks near London Volume 2

Walk 10 : Alton Circular

New Walk Options

There are 2 new walk options

1. A new afternoon route over Selbourne Common
2. A more pleasent ending of the walk into Alton avoiding the town centre

New Selbourne Common Route

This is a new route for the afternoon of the main walk, which cuts out the rather dull farmland section beyond Newton Valence, and explores more of Selbourne Common. It is also 0.6km (0.4 miles) shorter than the current main walk, and joins up with the very pretty Selbourne to Farringdon short cut, as follows:

This is available for download as a PDF File

Alternative ending from Chawton

This is an alternative ending to either the main Alton walk or the short way via Chawton, which avoids Alton town centre and keeps to fields as far as possible. The last part reverses the start of outward route of the Short Walk via Chawton.

1. [6] Turn right out of The Greyfriar pub or Cassandra's Cup tea rooms, or left out of Jane Austen's House.

2. 50 metres beyond the pub, when you are almost level with a thatched cottage to the left, go right up an easy to miss signposted footpath between hedges.

3. In 40 metres, pass through a metal kissing gate into a field. Keep straight on across the field, your direction due east.

4. In 100 metres, on the far side of the field, cross a stile hidden behind a clump of trees and keep on in the same direction as before. In 40 metres cross another stile into a wood.

5. In another 30 metres, the path starts to climb a hill. At the top, in another 30 metres, ignore a footpath forking right, and instead go straight on for 10 metres to a stile. Cross this stile, and go slightly left, following a footpath sign, to a point about 30 metres to the left of the farm buildings ahead, your direction 50 degrees.

6. In 140 metres, go through a squeeze gate, and on through another squeeze gate 40 metres further on

7. On the far side of this, veer half right, following a footpath sign, your direction 130 degrees. In 60 metres, at the field edge, go through another squeeze gate and on across the next field in the same direction, 130 degrees.

8. You now keep in the same direction, crossing three more stiles and the corners of three more fields. The third stile is a double stile.

9. Beyond this double stile, cross another field corner. In 100 metres, go through a metal fieldgate, and veer left, following the left hand edge of a field with a line of tall trees to your left, your direction due east.

10. In 150 metres, follow the field boundary left for 20 metres, and then right again to resume your former direction. 160 metres later, you come to the corner of the field. Ignore a metal fieldgate to the left and go through the one straight ahead, and across a ditch. 5 metres beyond this, at a two armed footpath sign, go left onto a car wide concrete track, your direction 20 degrees.

11. In 100 metres, where the track veers right to the road, go straight ahead for 10 metres on grass to a gap in a wooden fence, and out onto the A3006.

12. Cross this road with care (though it looks quiet at times, at others traffic comes quite fast), and go over a stile, which may be hidden by nettles in summer. An old metal footpath sign indicated a public footpath to Truncheaunts.

13. On the far side of the stile, go straight ahead on a car wide gravel track that joins from the right, following the left hand edge of a field towards corrugated metal barns ahead, your direction 10 degrees.

14. In 220 metres, just past the barns, turn right with the track. [!] In 20 metres, pass to the left of a metal cylindrical tank, and to the RIGHT of the hedge, NOT up the car wide earth track to the left of the hedge. A decayed and hidden footpath sign marks this path.

15. Keep straight on, with the hedge to your left along the left hand edge of a field, your direction 80 degrees. The footpath can be almost non-existent at this point. In 160 metres, cross or skirt two stiles (completely overgrown in summer), and keep on along the left hand edge of the next field, your direction now 60 degrees.

16. In 130 metres, cross a stile, and still keep to the left hand edge of the field, which brings you in 100 metres more to a wooden bridge over a ditch.

17. 10 metres beyond this, by a three armed footpath sign, cross a stile and go left onto a tarmac lane, your direction due north initially. [B1]

18. Those walkers doing the Short Walk to Chawton will realise that they have now rejoined their outward route from Alton. The route to the station is to reverse this outward route.

19. In detail: Keep on the tarmac lane. In 200 metres, you pass a white house to your left, and in 320 metres more, you pass a redundant metal fieldgate.

20. 30 metres beyond this, where the dark wood fence ends left and right, at a signposted crossroads go left up a bridleway between blue-topped posts.

21. In 80 metres, this brings you up an embankment to the A31 dual carriageway: cross this with great care.

22. On the far side, descend the bank, passing more blue-topped posts. In 10 metres cross an earth farm track, and go straight ahead between hedges, your direction 320 degrees.

23. In 180 metres you enter a wood and in 90 metres more, you come to a tarmac drive, where you go half right uphill, your direction 320 degrees. In 40 metres, you come to a road, where you go left uphill.

24. In 120 metres, at the top of the hill, a pavement starts to the right. Keep straight on, now slightly downhill. In 270 metres, you pass Crowley Drive to the right, and in 70 metres The Ridgeway to the left.

25. 50 metres beyond The Ridgeway, turn right along a signposted footpath between wooden garden fences.

26. In 40 metres, 10 metres before the path comes to a residential road ahead, turn left downhill on a path with a wooden fence to the left and trees to the right. In 100 metres you come to steps, which you go down to reach the road 80 metres later.

27. If light is fading, you can turn right on this road until you come to a crossroads, and go left to the station.

28. The recommended route, however, is to cross the road, and walk straight ahead along a tarmac path, with a railway embankent on your left.

29. In 30 metres, turn right past a concrete bollard onto a tarmac path, your direction initially due east.

30. In 60 metres, Kings Pond can be seen to your left. In a further 270 metres, at the end of the pond, go left at a path T-junction on a car wide tarmac path around the top of the pond (which is still to your left).

31. In 130 metres, as a block of flats ends right, and as the tarmac path starts to curve left along the far shore of the pond, go right through metal barriers on a tarmac path.

32. In 30 metres, this brings you to a road, where you go right for 15 metres, and then left at a T-junction for 20 metres to the main road.

33. Go left on this road. In 70 metres you pass under a railway bridge, and in a further 40 metres, cross the road to go up steps to the right into the forecourt of Alton Railway Station.