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Reports on club meets from members who took part. If you would like to send in a report please mail it to the Hon. Editor. Reports of members activites.
2026 MEET REPORTS
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We had a very good turnout for our March day meet with 7 participants, 5 club members and 2 interlopers. We met in the pretty Hampshire village of Kings Sombourne which nestles on the River Test between the larger towns Romsey and Stockbridge.
The weather was very kind and presented a dry day with plenty of sunny intervals and great visibility. We set off in an easterly direction across fields and farm tracks around Ashley Manor towards the hamlet of Chalkvale. Luckily the paths and fields were reasonably dry. We picked up a rather muddy bridleway which led us to the West Woods of Farley Mount Country Park. Here we turned south to join the Clarendon Way, an ancient track between the two cities of Winchester and Salisbury. We followed the Clarendon Way to Farley Mount, the high point of our route.
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 the folly
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 view from the folly
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We stopped at the folly built to commemorate a noble’s horse which had unfortunately died after falling into a chalk pit. The views were extensive from this point.
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 looking across to Ashley manor
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After lunch we traversed Beacon Hill ridge and dropped back down towards Hoplands Cottages following the course of a Roman Road.
The final section of our walk retraced our steps back across fields to Kings Sombourne and a quick refreshment in the Crown Inn.
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After lunch we traversed Beacon Hill ridge and dropped back down towards Hoplands Cottages following the course of a Roman Road.
The final section of our walk retraced our steps back across fields to Kings Sombourne and a quick refreshment in the Crown Inn.
Many thanks to club members Mike Goodyer, Margaret Moore, Mike O'Dwyer, Steve Creasey for joining me on this 10.6 mile undulating walk in the Hampshire countryside.
Report by Paul Stock
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This walk started from Stokenchurch, west of High Wycombe. We had changed the date to Thursday (as per the meets programme) and the venue, in order to make it more accessible to those who were available.
We met at Aston Rowant nature reserve in a small car park, as the main one was being renovated by people with several large diggers and masses of mud. From there we took a path down the field, under a bridge beneath the M40 and along the Swan’s Way track towards Watlington.
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 through the woods in the rain
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After a coffee break in dry conditions, we decided to take the lower route beside Watlington Hill as it began to rain quite heavily for a while.
We continued through woodland in rain, but with a reasonably solid leafy path to pick up the Chiltern Way, where it stopped raining for a while.
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 Here we took photos by the statue at the edge of Wormsley park and found large swathes of snowdrops to cheer us into thinking the Spring is on its way.
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We were further encouraged by seeing lambs as we crossed fields towards the next ridge, where we found a nice log to sit on for a lunch break.
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The final section up to the M40, uphill in the next rain shower left us wanting to get home rather than exploring the pub in the village.
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Fortunately we all had good, short journeys back and were glad we had made the effort to come out, meet each other and see the countryside.
Present: Margaret Moore, Mike Goodyer, Judy Renshaw
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Archived reports from 2001 to 2025.
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