#55 Rob's Hampshire Pub Walks. Bishops Waltham Walk

There are lots of great walks around the Hampshire market town of Bishops Waltham and this one combines two short walks with the option of making it one due to the figure of eight configuration.
On this walk in the South Downs National Park, we explore the characterful village centre before heading for the hills where we discover Northbrook Vineyard. Crossing the main road we pass the farms and feeder streams to the River Hamble south of the village before returning along the old L&SWR abandoned railway branch line and exploring the fishponds and 12c Bishops Palace (English Heritage)
Starts and finishes at The Crown Inn, Bishops Waltham.....4 miles approx (total)
A map of the walk can be found here.
explore.osmaps...
key moments
0:00 Intro Bishops Waltham free walks in Hampshire.

[@normanholland9758]

The abbey mill site was bought by sainsburys , they planned to build a huge superstore which would have finished off alot of the shops in the high st .There was fierce opposition to this from the locals ( but unfortunately no riots this time) The campaign to oppose this got alot of press as it was backed by Amanda Holden ( a local lass who used to work in the greengrocers in the high st) part of the plans for the superstore was a huge underground car park and a new doctors surgery to sweeten the planning application. As some locals already knew the site is the meeting of several underground aquifers and when they tried to put the piles down they hit running sand and there is no way it could have been built. Sainsburys got in a bit of a sulk about the local opposition , purchased the petrol garage , dropped their prices to the point that the other 2 local petrol stations quickly went out of business.

[@RobsHampshirePubWalks]

I remember the protests very well.