The journey, not the destination

18 January 2015

When I woke on Sunday morning I was expecting to see snow. My weather app had been full of snowflakes and a seventy per cent chance of the white stuff when I’d checked it the night before. The Yak Trax were in my beg ready and I’d drifted off to sleep thinking about good routes for snowy weather. Outside though, the garden was wet, the sky cloudy and grey and the fickle weather app had sun peeking out from behind little clouds. The disappointment of not being able to break out the Yak Trax was tempered by the prospect of a brand new walking route.

For a while now I’ve been planning to wander out to the village of Botley about four and a half miles to the east of my village. It’s a place I’ve only ever been to by car and I thought it could do with further exploration. Walking is about the journey, not the destination though, so I’ll start by telling you about that.

Commando Junior joined me for the walk up the Big Hill but, after our Boxing Day adventure, decided he didn’t fancy going any further than that. Somehow a few rosebuds have survived on the green Island where the Main Road divides towards the bypass. They’re very frost scorched and I doubt they’ll last much longer but I was surprised to see them nonetheless.

Once we’d crossed the road at the top of the hill Commando Junior went off to the shops and I carried on towards the Red Lion pub at the top of the precinct alone. The pub once stood on the spot where the Main Road divided into Bitterne Road and Bursledon Road. The original pub was built in the 1830’s and was a staging post on the route to Chichester. Less than thirty years later the present pub was built in front of the original building and, while the village has changed almost beyond recognition around it, the pub is much the same as it always was.

Beyond the precinct there are still two roads but now they both feed into the bypass. Usually I take the right fork leading towards Bursledon. This time I was taking the left fork, up through the underpass with its red lion emblem, to the old Bitterne Road, now renamed Bitterne Road East. It’s a road that hasn’t changed much since I was a child, mostly tree lined and leafy, sweeping down a long hill before ascending again to Thornhill Park.

Those hills are a bit of a slog and, even on a Sunday, there’s a fair bit of traffic. On the first part of the upward section. It was a relief to reach the short stretch where the path departs from the road, even it it was fairly steep and slippery with fallen leaves. At the top of the hill there is a large roundabout, Kanes Hill roundabout and this is where I stepped out of Southampton and into the borough of Eastleigh, at least technically.

In actual fact I was in Hedge End. These days it’s probably best known for the mass of huge superstores nestling beside the motorway on the edge of the village. To avoid the busy roads leading to these, I took a footpath to Upper Northam Road, once the main route into Southampton and named, presumably, because it led to Northam and the bridge to the west of my village. It’s a route I knew about from satelite maps only. New territory for walking.

During the build up to D-Day, Hedge End was on the edge of a massive marshalling site for troops and military vehicles. Upper Northam Road was actually used as a vehicle park. There a small copse of young trees and a farm, Holly Grove Farm, there now. The farm house is pretty, if a little understated and not exactly cottagey. Beside it two horses were grazing in a field behind an ugly metal fence. Through the bars I took a couple of photos.

Before the Erection of Cottages Act in 1588, any man could build a house on common land if he wished. The original hamlet of Hedge End grew up on Botley Common, springing from a few dwellings built in around 1250. The name Hedge End started to appear on records in the early eighteenth century but no one seems to know where it came from or what it means. Finally, in 1894, Hedge End became a civil parish. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, several farms were established, in the main, growing strawberries. In all probability, Holly Grove Farm is one of these. Just past the farm is a road called Strawberry Fields which started the Beatles song going on a loop in my head.

When I reached the point where the footpath and access road meet the real road the sun had burnished the bare trees giving everything an almost impossible vibrancy and colour. Of course I had to stop and take a photo. A woman walking her dog came towards me, probably wondering what I was up to.
“Do you think that tree’s going to fall?” she asked, looking a little worried and pointing at the large tree I was standing in front of. Maybe she thought it was the reason for my photo.
“It looks pretty sturdy to me,” I replied. Whether this reassured her or not remains to be seen but I didn’t fancy trying to explain exactly what I was taking pictures of in case she thought I was bonkers.

Now there were houses beside me. Sadly, if any of the thirteenth century dwellings still exist, I didn’t see them but there were some lovely old buildings all the same. A white painted cottage with a row of window boxes on the upstairs windows caught my eye, provoking a touch of house envy. On the apex of the next junction a lovely square red brick cottage on a triangular plot made me smile. As I crossed the side road two elderly ladies crossed in the opposite direction and, when I turned to take a photo of the cottage, they were just going through the gate.

The next interesting building I came to was a Baptist Chapel. A pretty little place with a moss and lichen covered wall, lovely arched windows and a small porch at the front. The sign told me this was a ‘strict and particular’ chapel but all were welcome, which seemed a slight contradiction. A lot of Googling told me nothing about the history of the chapel which is a shame, but it did tell me that strict and particular refers to a type of Calvinst Baptists and their beliefs. However old the chapel is and exactly what the congregation believe, I like their chapel very much, especially the arched doorway and its leaded window of thick distorted glass.

On I went, passing the place where Upper Northam Road becomes Lower Northam Road without even realising. Then, just past the Maypole Roundabout, named after a pub that no longer exists, I turned onto Broad Oak, the final stetch of road before Botley. There I was, walking along wondering if there was really a broad oak on the road somewhere and half looking for it, when I was hit with a massive dose of house envy. My love of thatched cottages is well documented and there, beside the road, was one so pretty I wanted to knock the door and ask for a look round inside.

Of course there was no door knocking, I’m not completely mad, but I did stop to take pictures and there was a little fantasising about what it would be like to live there. Beside the cottage was a bridge and a stream and behind it fields where I could just see horses in the distance. Finally I tore myself away and walked on only to be stopped again a little way along the road by another thatched cottage. This one was behind a fence so I couldn’t really see it properly but it had a for sale sign outside. Inside my head a little voice was wondering how much it cost and whether I could persuade Commando to move there.

By the time the sign telling me I was entering Botley came into view common sense had taken over. Yes, it would be lovely to live in a thatched cottage with fields for a garden but, let’s face it, it would be a long walk to work every day. Not only that but I’m sure the insurance premiums on thatched roofs are eye poppingly huge. Then there’s finding a thatcher to fix it, not to mention low ceilings and doorways that would drive poor Commando mad. Oh well, I suppose I can dream.