Power lines, fields, a lost station and a mill

9 March 2017

My last few walks have all been about postcards and familiar places so today I thought I’d go somewhere completely different and explore the marshes of the River Test. This is an area I do not know well so a great deal of planning and plotting was needed and, even with a map on my phone, getting lost was a distinct possibility. The weather forecast was for a dull, cloudy day and, we set out early, hoping it wouldn’t rain.

By the time we got to Redbridge and the start of our walk the sun had unexpectedly come out. We set off along Test Lane next to the railway line that seperates Millbrook and Redbridge from the marshes of the Test and Totton. Last year’s Care For a Walk touched on this area and I ended up here after my visit to Ealing Tide Mill back in 2014. Both times I’d been lost, or at least clueless about exactly where I was. This time, armed with a map, I thought I knew where I was going, sort of…

CJ and I followed the railway line away from Redbridge towards Nursling. There was blackthorn blossom to remind us spring was coming and tantalising views of the marshes across the railway line. Once we’d passed the Echo offices and the level crossing where I’d left the marshes three years ago things began to get rather industrial, at least to our right. To our left men were fishing on the marshes. It was tempting to head that way across the level crossing but the boardwalks flood with the tide and it can get pretty muddy so we kept going forwards, following my map with our fingers crossed.

A great deal of the lane has no footpaths but, luckily, there was no traffic until we reached the roundabout at the end. The motorway sliproad was to our right so there was no room for mistakes. We headed left, following the blue line on the map through an industrial estate to Weston Lane. Here we finally crossed the railway line. We stopped for a moment to watch a goods train, heading for the docks no doubt. Now there was nothing separating us from the marshes but fences and fields.

As far as I could tell we were now in Nursling, a village that began life as a prehistoric earth banked settlement known as the Walls overlooking the Test fairly close to where we stood. Of course no sign of it remains today. Later the Romans settled here and named the area Onna. By the eighth century the village was known as Nhutscelle, then Nutshalling. In the Doomsday Book the parish was said to belong to the monks of St Swithen’s Monastery in Winchester and, after the dissolution of the monasteries it passed to the Baker Mill family.

You are never far from pylons and power lines on the marshes of the Test and now our walk took us beneath them for the first time.  They seemed like a row of giant metal aliens marching across the green fields under a dramatic blue sky filled with the clouds that were supposed to be blocking the sun but weren’t really up to the job. A horse was grazing in a field to our right so close to the power lines I wondered if all the buzzing electricity and electro magnetic fields were frying its poor brain.

We turned off at Station Road.
“Is there a train station here then?” CJ asked seeing the road sign.
“Not any more,” I told him. “Nursling Station was a little way up the road, towards the motorway bridge. It was closed in 1957 though and the Station house is now just another house.”
We could have taken a detour to have a look but I wasn’t sure exactly where the station had been so we kept going forwards. Again we were walking without the benefit of pavements but there were muddy verges to hop onto when the odd car came past. Those same verges held clumps of daffodils and the promise of more wildflowers to come.

Shortly after we crossed a burbling tributary of the Test we came to a crossroads and a signpost. It told us we were in Nursling with Redbridge and Totton a couple of miles behind us, Lee just over a mile to our right and Romsey four miles in the same direction. I was surprised Romsey was so close and, for a few seconds, thought about abandoning my original plan and heading that way.

A pretty little white cottage stood opposite the sign, the first dwelling we’d seen since we left Redbridge, and we stopped for a moment to admire it. By the looks of it there would be roses around the red door in a few weeks. In the end we didn’t head for Romsey, the risk of getting hopelessly lost was too great. Instead we followed the arrow saying No Through Road, along Mill Lane. According to the map the road might be a dead end for cars but there was a footpath at the end of it.

Just around the corner we found another little white cottage with a beautifully overgrown garden and a row of daffodils lining the grass beside the fence. Barely half an hour earlier we’d been in Millbrook with tower blocks all around us so it seemed odd to find ourselves in such a rural setting after such a short walk.

The next house we came to had a sign telling us it was the Manor House. The Manor of Nursling began as two separate manors, Nursling Prior, centred around the Priory and convent of St Swithun and Nursling Beaufo. The exact boundaries of these manors have been lost in the mist of time and it isn’t clear exactly where any manor houses would have been. This Manor House was built in the eighteenth century on the foundations of a fifteenth century house, possibly the Manor House of Nursling Prior. It is an interesting red brick building, used these days for wedding receptions, and stands in three and a half acres of grounds on the banks of the Test. Beside the house a wonderful old brick and timber barn, flanked by several other farm like buildings caught my attention.

Opposite horses were grazing in pylon filled field. Of course CJ had to climb the bank to try to get a better look at them. While he was vainly trying to call them to the fence I wandered slowly along the lane, eager to keep moving. Before I’d gone very far though, I came to another clump of pretty little cottages. Opposite them someone had hung some bird feeders on the boughs of the hedge. It seemed a strange place for them.

While I was wondering why the bird feeders were hanging in the hedgerow CJ was still trying to attract the horses. He didn’t seem to be having much luck from what I could see through a gap in the hedge a little further along.  Behind the horse’s field I could see more pylons and the transformers of the Nursling electricity substation. Apparently you can hear the hum of electricity if you’re  close enough, although I didn’t hear it myself.

Eventually CJ gave up on the horses and ran to catch me up. Around the next bend we came upon a large fence supply shop, New Forest Fencing. The smell of sawn wood was heavy in the air but we hurried along because a large lorry piled with fence panels was just about to leave the grounds and we wanted to keep out of its way. Thankfully the lorry was heading back the way we’d come and, at the next bend, we stopped to look at a strange little white house. It was much smaller than all the other houses we’d seen on Mill Lane and far more modest in design. Perhaps it belongs to the people who own the fencing shop?

All morning we’d been following the meandering path of the River Test, although we couldn’t always see it. A few steps further on we were crossing it for the first time. On the far bank we could see a pretty little garden with a greenhouse and a wooden table and chairs set out beside the water.
“Imagine having a garden like that, right on the riverbank,” I said, my house envy kicking in before I’d even caught sight of the house in question.

CJ was more interested in an odd little brick shed on the opposite side of the bridge. It looked a little like the one at Highbridge Road and, close beside it, I thought I could see some walls that might have been the remains of an old lock or weir. Perhaps it was once some kind of lock house?

The real house, when I finally got to look at it, was more than worthy of my envy. In actual fact it was two semi detatched cottages. A sign on one told me it was called Willow Cottage. Sadly, both are well out of my price range but it was nice to dream, if only for a moment.

Beside the cottages on either side of the road there were fields. In both fields there were horses. Obviously this meant a long wait while CJ stopped to whisper to them all. For a city boy he has a strange affinity for horses.

The object of the first part of our walk today was Nursling Mill and we were so close to it now I could see the roof through the trees. While CJ carried on with his horse whispering I walked on along the lane, impatient to have a look at it. The Romans built a bridge across the Test here but the mill, used to grind corn into flour, dates from the eighteenth century. The mill building and the mill house beside it, with its charming dormer windows, are now private houses so we could get just a fleeting glimpse.

Mill Lane ended abruptly here with a closed metal gate. A large and emphatic sign warned there was No Parking At Any Time and, for a moment or two I thought we wouldn’t be able to go any further, although I was sure we’d walked along the river to the mill on last year’s Care For a Walk. Luckily, while I was preoccupied with the warning sign, CJ had spotted a stile next to the gate. We crossed it and, for our pains, got a much better view of the mill through the trees from the river bank.

By this time we’d been walking for a little over an hour and, with all the stops to talk to horses, had only covered three miles. The dull cloudy day we’d expected had turned into a beautifully sunny one, far warmer than we’d been led to believe when we set out. We had no snacks or water with us and there was nowhere on the route I’d planned to get any. As we were a mile short of the halfway point of our planned walk I wondered if it might not be wise to turn back and retrace our steps rather than keep going forward.

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