Walk 10 : Alton Circular

Main walk 21km (13.1 miles), or 19.4 km (12.1 miles) with shortcut after Selborne, six or six and a half hours walking time. For the whole outing, including trains and meals, allow 10 hours

Short walk to Chawton only 11.8 km (7.3 miles)

By using buses main walk can be reduced in many ways, by just a few kilometres or to as little as 5.7km (3.5 miles)

OS Landranger Map No 186. OS Explorer Map No 133

4 out of 10 (6 out of 10 via Selborne Common, 2 out of 10 on Short Walk to Chawton)

The quiet corner of Hampshire through which this walk passes seems like the kind of countryside in which nothing much ever happened. Yet in the late 18th and early 19th century it inspired two famous writers - Gilbert White and Jane Austen. After a section over wide upland fields to East Worldham, the walk first plunges into the delightful arcadia of woods, hangers and hidden pastures that surround Selborne, about which White wrote his famous Natural History. From there, it crosses wooded Selborne Common and gentle ridges of downland to Chawton, the home of Jane Austen for the last eight, and most productive years, of her life. On the way you can reflect on Austen's remark in Persuasion that two villages only three miles apart "will often include a total change of conversation, opinion and idea": though only a few miles apart, even today Chawton and Selborne seem like different worlds.

The Shortcut after Selborne on the main walk enables you to miss out Selborne Common and cut 1.6km (1 mile), or about half an hour off the 8.5km (5.4 mile) section to Chawton: see details in the main walk directions. This reduces the main walk to 19.4km (12.1 miles)

Even so, since Jane Austen's house closes at 4.30pm, most walkers might still be hard pushed to get to Chawton early enough to make a proper visit to it. The Short Walk to Chawton described at the end of the main text is an alternative. This is a 5.6 km (3.5 mile) direct route from Alton to Upper Farringdon, a possible lunch stop, from where it is just 3.4km (2.1 miles or an hour's walking time) to Chawton. This makes a total walk of 11.8 km (7.3 miles).

The main walk is also remarkably well served with buses, which enable you to shorten the main walk in many ways, for example to have more time at Gilbert White's or Jane Austen's house. For times for these routes, call 0845 121 0180.

From Monday to Saturday (not Sunday) the 72 from Alton Station to Selborne via Chawton, has at least two morning and three afternoon services. The last bus back to Alton is currently around 5pm. This bus stops outside the Selborne Arms in Selborne and Jane Austen's House in Chawton.

On Monday to Friday, there are also at least five buses a day from Alton to East Worldham. On Saturday there are only two afternoon buses, however, and on Sunday no buses at all.

Using these buses you can:

- Start at East Worldham, and cut 4km (2.5 miles) off the 9.7km (6 mile) walk from Alton to Selborne

- Walk to Selborne, see Gilbert White's House, and get the bus back

- Get the bus to Selborne, and do the afternoon half of the main walk - 9.7km (6.1 miles)

- Walk to Selborne, get a bus after lunch to Chawton, and walk back, cutting 8.5km (5.4 mile) off the main walk

- Get a bus from Chawton, to cut the last 2.8km (1.7 miles) off either the main walk or Short Walk to Chawton. The last bus is currently around 5.15pm from Chawton.

A new afternoon route over Selbourne Common

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. Download the PDF (link above).

Alternative ending from Chawton (avoiding the walk into Alton town centre)

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. See 'new walk options' link above.

The Church St Mary, East Worldham dates from the 12th century, though it was extensively renovated in the fifteenth century. Shortly afterwards, it was given by the Bishop of Winchester to his newly founded Magdalen College in Oxford. A 14th century effigy in the south wall is thought to mark the burial place of Philippa, wife of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, whose son Thomas was Lord of the Manor here.

Gilbert White's famous Natural History of Selborne, based on his observations in the countryside around the village, was published in 1789, and it has never been out of print since. It is supposed to be the fourth most published book in English after the Bible, Shakespeare and the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Reverend Gilbert White's grandfather was vicar of the Church of St Mary' Selborne from 1681 to 1727 (it is this Gilbert White, not the famous naturalist, who is named in the historial list of vicars at the back of the church), and White himself was born in the Vicarage in 1720, moving to The Wakes, where the Gilbert White Museum now is, when he was nine years old.

White was ordained in 1747 after studying at Oxford University, and he was appointed vicar of a parish in Northampton that was within the gift of his college. However, he loved Selborne so much that he appointed a curate to run that parish, and himself became curate first of All Saint's Church, Upper Farringdon from 1761 to 1784 (visited on this walk), and then, later in life, of St Mary's Selborne. White died in 1793 and is buried in the north east corner of the churchard. At his request, the stone was simply marked GW 26 June 1893.

The Gilbert White Museum (tel 01420 511 275) in The Wakes, Selborne, not only recreates his house and garden, but also has a section on Captain Lawrence Oates of Scott of the Antarctic fame - the man who stepped out of the tent to die in a blizzard saying: "I am just going outside. I may be gone for some time". The reason is that in 1953 when the Gilbert White Society were trying to raise money to buy The Wakes, the Oates family offered to help on condition their family collection was exhibited too. The museum is open 11 am to 5pm daily except for the week after Christmas.

Chawton. Though her novels are set elsewhere, Jane Austen was always a Hampshire girl at heart and she was devastated when her father retired in 1801 as vicar of Steventon, a small North Hampshire village, and moved his family to Bath. Jane hated Bath and wrote nothing during this period. Worse, when her father died four years later, she, her sister Cassandra and their mother were left with little money and no fixed home.

It was Jane's brother Edward who finally came to the rescue. He had been adopted by the wealthy but childless Knight family, and so had inherited the Great House at Chawton (now Chawton House and recently opened as a library of women writers of Jane Austen's time). Edward found his sisters and mother a house in the centre of the village, and they moved there in July 1809.

Jane was delighted by "our Chawton home", and immediately started writing again. Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion were all written here, and it was while living in Chawton that she first won outside acclaim as a novelist when her youthful novels - Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility - were at last published. The house is now run as Jane Austen's House by the Jane Austen Trust (tel 01420 832 262) and is open 11.00am to 4.30pm from March to November, on weekends only December to February. Among the exhibits is the creaking door to the room where Jane did her writing. The hinges in the door were kept deliberately unoiled so that she could conceal her work if anyone came in, writing novels not being considered a suitable profession for a lady.

Alas Jane's happiness at Chawton proved shortlived, as in 1817 she fell ill with a mystery illness, and died in Winchester, where she had gone for medical treatment. Because she was the daughter of a clergyman, she was buried in the north aisle of Winchester Cathedral. Cassandra and her mother remained in Chawton for the rest of their lives, however, and are buried in the churchyard around the back of the St Nicholas's Church, which like the Great House is passed on this walk.

The walk from Chawton to All Saint's Church, Upper Farringdon was a favourite of Jane's, not just because it passed through her brother's estate, but because she was friends with the family of John Benn, the vicar there: in her letters she writes of walking over to Farringdon for tea. Gilbert White was also curate here from 1761 to 1784 (that is, some time before Jane Austen lived in Chawton, though he knew and visited with Jane's father when the latter was Vicar of Steventon). Note the amazing and very ancient hollowed out yew tree in the churchyard (to the left of the church door, as you approach it from the road)

The curious red brick building across the road from Farringdon church is Massey's Folly. Designed and built by the Reverend Thomas Massey, with only three local labourers to help him, it took 30 years to complete between 1880 and 1910. The design was apparently influenced by the daughter of an Indian civil servant, who used to visit Massey secretly. The building stood empty for 15 years after its construction; it was then turned into the village hall and school

Take the train nearest to 9am, before or after, from London Waterloo to Alton, journey time about one hour. Buy a day return to Alton. Journey time from London is one hour. Other walkers should aim to start from Alton not long after 10am if they want to get to Selborne comfortably in time for lunch. If doing the Short Walk to Chawton, the train nearest to 10am from London, or a 11 am start from Alton is quite sufficient.

Alton station has a pay car park, which currently costs £3.60 a day. There is also a free car park near Kings Pond: drive past the station, up Paper Mill Lane and under the railway bridge, and then at the major crossroads 200 metres later, go right. The car park is on the left along this road. Retrace your steps along the road to the crossroads and go right for the main walk: for the short walk go down to Kings Pond and turn right along it. In both cases, start the directions at the point marked [*]. You can also park almost anywhere in central Alton, as the urban ending of either walk comes back along its High Street: to find the station go east along the High Street, and then see the end of the urban ending walk directions for details of how to find the station.

An early lunch can be had 4km (2.5 miles) into the main walk at the Three Horseshoes in East Worldham (01420 83211) which serves food from 12.00pm to 2.30pm daily and has a garden.

However, the recommended lunch stop, 9.7km (6 miles) into the walk at Selborne, is either one of the village's two pubs. The Queens Hotel (tel 01420 511454) has the virtue that it serves food all day from about 9am to 9.30pm, and has a relatively large number of tables. It has a varied, family-style menu and a garden. The Selborne Arms (tel 01420 511247) 60 metres down the road has a more gourmet menu and also has a garden, but it only serves food from 12pm to 2pm.

For a lighter lunch, the tea shop in the Gilbert White Museum in Selborne is also a possibility: see Tea

There are several fine places for a picnic on the section between East Worldham and Selborne, particularly the pasturelands around King John's Hill and the clearings in Binswood. The Long and Short Lythe valleys on the last half mile into Selborne, as well as the hill leading up to the church, are also particularly enchanting picnic spots. If you are planning a picnic later in the walk (for example, on Selborne Common), the village shop, open till 6pm Monday to Friday and 7.30pm on Saturday, has a good selection of food items.

On the Short Walk to Chawton the recommended lunchstop is the Rose and Crown in Upper Farringdon (tel 01420 588 231), 5.6km (3.5 miles) in the walk, which has a delightful garden and a sign welcoming walkers. It serves food 12pm to 2.30pm Monday to Saturday, and 12pm to 3.30pm on Sunday. For drinks, the pub is also open all afternoon on Saturdays and Sundays: otherwise it opens in the evening at 5pm on Fridays and 6pm Monday to Thursday.

An alternative is to have lunch in Chawton at either Cassandra's Cup (see Tea for details), which has a light lunch menu from 12pm to 2.30pm, or at The Greyfriar pub (01420 83841) next door, which serves food from 12pm to 2pm Monday to Saturday or 12pm to 3pm Sunday.

A possible picnic spot is also indicated between point [7] and [8] in the short walk text.

On the main walk, the Rose and Crown in Upper Farringdon (see Lunch for details) is a possible early tea stop: no cakes, but it serves tea in china pots. The recommended tea stop, if you can reach it in time, however, is Cassandra's Cup opposite Jane Austen's House in Chawton, which is open 10.30am to 4.30pm. An alternative is The Greyfriar pub next door which is open all afternoon for tea and coffee, and also serves ice cream. Either of these two places are also ideal tea stops on the Short Walk to Chawton.

A later tea option, if you finish the walk by the urban route option (see walk directions), is the Swan Hotel (tel 01420 8377) in Alton High Street, which serves cream teas until 6pm, and tea and coffee until normal pub closing times. Alton High Street also has several other pubs and takeaways to choose from.

If you are finishing the walk in Selborne, the tea shop in the Gilbert White Museum is highly recommended. Set in an elegant 18th century parlour, it offers cakes made to period recipes, and is open the same times as the museum - 11am to 5pm. From 12pm to 2pm, there is also a light lunch menu of period pies and pasties. You can visit the tea shop without paying for the museum: simply make known your intention at the ticket desk, and they will direct you.

If the tea shop is full, The Queen's Hotel in Selborne also does afternoon tea: see Lunch for details of both places.