Southdown thyme: “ ’You don’t get nothing like that in the Weald.  Watercress, maybe?’ said Mr Dudeney.”

Rudyard Kipling, Rewards and Fairies

Given that a lot of us think we know what to expect of the South Downs Way, it is surprisingly unpredictable and idiosyncratic.  Is it similar to the North Downs Way?  No.  Well, that’s that one out of the way.  You want detail?  The South Downs Way has less mud and a whole lot more easy-to-reach seaside.  

But both chalk ridges share some basic characteristics which are significant in the development of the ancient network of tracks and paths which underpin the modern long distance trails.  Chalk drains freely and is easier to clear of woodland than the heavy soils of the clay Weald lands and a pastoral economy, based on sheep, is feasible.  The chalk ridges also provide height (North Downs top height is 294 m/963 ft on Leith Hill and South Downs 271 m/889 ft on Butser Hill). This provides great visibility if you feel threatened, need to build a fort or just want a great view of the Isle of Wight or London.

Kipling’s 1910 story, ‘Rewards and Fairies’, illustrates the ancient tensions between the “messy trees in the Weald” and Shepherd Dudeney’s “bare, windy chalk Downs”.  If you want a feel for the contrasting magic of the chalk lands and the clay Weald, ‘listen in’, as the children Una and Dan do, to the discourse between Puck and the ‘half naked man’ (The Knife and the Naked Chalk).

By the latter part of the 20th century, the need was felt to understand and conserve landscapes, resulting in the National Parks movement and creation of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The development of the Sussex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and the South Downs Way (SDW) were understandably interwoven.  The trail was approved in principle in 1963, the South Downs AONB established in 1966 and the SDW finally opened in 1972, linking ‘chalk’s end’ Eastbourne, in East Sussex, to the village of Buriton in – shock horror – not West Sussex, but just over the border in Hampshire. 

With the increasing rumble and ground swell to turn the Sussex Downs and neighbouring Hampshire Downs AONB into a National Park, the two Natural Beauties transformed into Conservation Boards and Joint Committees until they finally metamorphosed into a single South Downs National Park butterfly in 2010.  The South Downs Way was already there; it had been extended from Buriton to Winchester as early as 1987. 

Terroir had been pottering around the Sussex end of the SDW for decades, either section-walking or incorporating lengths into stunning, downland circular rambles.  Access can be surprisingly sustainable, with careful use of trains and – the increasingly infrequent - buses.  We seldom go the extra mile(s) to the western, Hampshire end, however, so we elected to join the walking party at the beginning of the expedition and hike from Winchester to Exton, and then Buriton. Here is the expedition story.

Winchester to Exton

The support team dropped us in Bridge Street, central Winchester, where the starting point, a silvered wooden block, buried in Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, lies outside the City Mill and, possibly more importantly, a cafe (both closed when we were there!). Illustrated at the top of the Blog, the block’s spiky, orange ‘hair cut’ actually represents the alarmingly exaggerated path gradients which await us.

By necessity, the first mile is urban, but no one can argue with a stroll along the River Itchen, before a short amble through some embarrassingly mixed, Winchester-fringe, architecture. The initiation ceremony continues with a hellish crossing of the M3, but despite feeling like prisoners, we survive and emerge, relatively unscathed, onto gently undulating chalk farmland. A classic, chalkland, fruiting hedgrow completes the PTSD healing process (despite a certain urban fringe unmanaged look), with massed privet, hawthorn, blackthorn sloes and rose hips.

Two things struck us about the day’s walk. The defined chalk ridge which characterises the Sussex section of the Way, is lacking here and reminded me more of a domesticated Salisbury Plain, than the South Downs. The northern-based members of the party also commented on this rolling plateau/valley combination rather than the chalk scarp-and-dip slope with which we are all more familiar.

The second factor which particularly struck the south easterners is the large scale of the agricultural landscape and its accompanying architecture, in comparison with the far smaller and more vernacular domestic buildings of the villages and outlying cottages. To us, it read as though the villages had retained their pre 20th century quaintness, while new infrastructure (piped water, drains, electricity etc) had eliminated draughts, leaky roofs, smokey kitchens and outside privies, and 21st century maintenance techniques had retained and enhanced the charm and beauty of a former era. Meanwhile, agriculture had, with a few exceptions, moved forward to embrace much larger scale operations, with vast fields of wheat, barley and oilseed, plus massive investment in machinery, in additives to keep the thin chalk soils producing, and in massive, functional buildings to support the whole operation.

Upper row: the domestic and vernacular. Lower row: the changing scale of agriculture

As we moved eastward we did re-discover grassland as the slopes steepened around Beacon Hill. Some was ranch-style improved pasture, bright green with fertiliser, but other areas supported the dull greens and browns of more diverse meadow, and verges fulll of wild flowers.

The final walk, down Beacon Hill towards the village of Exton, was enhanced by the anticipation of a pint well-earned (even across all that improved grassland - above, far right). Earned, maybe, but delivered? Nope! The pub had just shut! But here was the River Meon, flowing through the heart of Exton as the Itchen flows through the heart of Winchester. These crystal clear, chalk rivers are not only beautiful, but extremely vulnerable to pollution including chemical runoff from agricultural land. Of the 200 or so such rivers known of globally, 85% are found in southern and eastern England. That is one heck of a responsibility which we are currently not addressing as well as we should. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/habitats/freshwater/chalk-rivers

Below: Exton and the River Meon

Next week: Exton to Buriton