countryside

Scenes during a walk in late autumn, from Bishops Sutton near Alresford, to Gundleton and back.

An old granary at the northern edge of Bishops Sutton, perched on staddlestones to keep it drier and relatively rodent-proof:

A new house (Southview) built next to the Watercress Line. This is looking west:

Watercress line from Bighton Lane, looking east:

A dovecote in a scruffy garden near the railway:

View from Bighton Lane to Northside Farm and Sutton Wood:

Geese and cows at Cliveden Farm, Gundleton:

Cliveden. And I thought all of this part of Hampshire was super-expensive:

Feeding the horses near Gundleton. They were very hungry. C fetched them fresh grass and I pushed the fallen hay to their side of the fence:

Into an autumnal Sutton Wood:

Out of the wood, looking west. The familiar landmark of Great Clump, Cheesfoot Head in the distance:

Looking south from Northside Lane to Park Dale and the woods of Bramdean Common:

Back under the Watercress Line (ex Mid Hants Railway).

The bridge arch. Always interesting patterns of decay on these bridges. This bridge would have been made around 1865. Just visible top right is one of two small trees we saw somehow growing from between the bricks:

The site of the source of the short River Alre, which springs from east of Bishops Sutton and flows a few miles before joining the Itchen near Alresford.

Lots of crows! They were all on the field before we came.

Not quite *the* Alresford but a another Alres-ford (dry) at Water Lane, Bishops Sutton:

Milestone at Bishops Sutton. Apparently Winton is an abbreviation of Wintoniensis, the meaning of Winchester. Tasker is a 19th Century ironworks company.

A typical row of Hampshire flint cottages, at Bishops Sutton.

And the rather more fancy Sutton Manor

A glimpse of Bishops Sutton Church, with its high weathervane:

And right at the end of the walk we saw a bird of prey swoop across the road into the hedge. We stood and watched for a while before it went deeper in to eat its prey. Later we identified it as a kestrel:

Six years ago, I took a similar walk. Here is the video.

Today we walked for an hour, maybe an hour and a half in the area of Gilbert Street, just north of the South Downs National Park. Gilbert Street sounds like a street. It isn’t, just part of the loosely connected settlements in the Ropley/Monkwood/North Street area, southwest of Alton.

From Ropely we crossed a vast hayfield to towards Lyewood House:

Don’t play on the round bales we were told on their introduction in the 1980s. I preferred the rectangular ones we could build dens with.