The Roebuck Wickham

Walk Date - June 27th 2015
Walk Time - 2 hours 33 mins
Distance - 7.32 miles
Ascent - 234 feet



































We parked in the car park of the Roebuck Inn which is just over a mile north of Wickham in Hampshire on the A32, with it's distinctive giant wicker deer sitting in the garden, there are a few spaces directly in front of the pub and a large car park to the left with access to the garden.



We walked past the pub and took a small side road which took us over the old Meon Valley Railway line, don't miss the small path the leads between the houses, it is marked with a finger post and was a little over grown, this opened out into a small field, across the field we entered some woods with a foot bridge over the Meon river.

A short walk along the side of another field took us to a crossing of Newmans Hill and a finger post took us up a gentle incline of a graveled farm track, this turned sharply to the right and past a large factory or depot (which was closed but looked like it could be busy with large vehicles during the working day). Turning left onto Bishops Wood Road, we now had just over a mile of road walking, the road was quiet and passed some of Hampshire's more modern and grander houses bordering the golf course. At the end of the road we turned right onto Gravel Hill and the left in to Mislingford Road, only a short along the road we picked out the finger post on the left and back across fields again.

We only had a small amount of road walking as we joined Cott Street and soon turned off to follow the foot paths through more fields, fortunately all these paths were marked with fingers posts and were all clearly identifiable on my OS map (I have the OS map app on my phone which is invaluable) we past this beautiful cottage on Cott Street

The path took us from Cott Street through a very large orchard, we walked through two fields full of trees the first having the path head through the centre of the orchard and then following the edge of a field with a small wooded area to our right.




Heading through a large arable field we came to a hedge row with a very steep descent down to the main road, you can see the altitude chart just after the 4 mile mark, be careful as you leave through the hedge row directly onto the A32 with no side path or pavement and this is a very straight so fast section of the A32, fortunately the path you need is directly opposite and leads across the floodplain of the Meon valley.

Across a couple of footbridges and then some steps cut into the embankment of the old Meon Valley Railway line and we joined the footpath turning right and heading south for about 2 miles.

The railways track is a good path, this section mostly sheltered with tree's the first mile being along an embankment before dropping through a large wooded area and under the A32, we left the railway and headed up a path back on to the road we had originally started out from, the Roebuck is sign posted from the railway foot path.



The Roebuck is an old Victorian Inn, nice decor and very large, we ordered drinks and food and headed into the garden, we had the local cheese board sharing platter, it was served on a piece of slate - anyone who knows me will understand my views on eating off building materials rather than a plate - and I ordered a side of chips, the platter was £12.50, I can't recall how much the chips and beer cost, but in all around £20, the collection of cheese was good along with chutney, apple and celery plus some crackers, I was glad of the extra chips and would have preferred bread in place of the crackers.

Trip Advisor - The Roebuck Inn

As this was quite a gentle walk with no major climbs we are keeping it in the repertoire for visiting friends or relatives who would like a nice picturesque walk in the Hampshire countryside without expending too much energy and a high quality Inn at the end, there is some good field walking, an orchard, a chalk escarpment, the floodplain and river and finally the railway line with an old station (now converted into a house) along the route, Hampshire at its best!