🥾 Walk 330 - Winchfield Evening Walk

On Wednesday evening 16th May, we had our first mid-week evening walk of the year. Six of us met up at the Barley Mow Slipway car park at 7pm for this easy 3-mile walk.

We started by following the Basingstoke Canal towpath, heading south toward Dogmersfield. This section of the canal suffered a land-slip some years ago and so we were walking on a recently rebuilt part of the towpath. Reaching a brick-built bridge, we crossed the canal and entered the grounds of Dogmersfield Park.

Passing Tundry Pond, we stopped off to look at the boat house at the end of the pond. Here there is a good view of the bridges over the pond, with the evening sun adding colour to the brickwork. We continued walking through the park and passed a field of highland cattle.

Two of the horned beasts were settling an argument over their superiority in the herd. It seemed like a low-impact fight between two animals whose hearts weren't really in it! We stopped to watch them but as soon as they noticed we were there, they stopped fighting to watch us!

We carried on crossing the park until we reached Sprats Hatch Farm, where we followed a track that led us back to the Basingstoke Canal. Following the towpath, we saw a number of different birds, such as heron, jackdaw, and we just heard a cuckoo in the distance.

As the canal snaked round towards the Barley Mow bridge, we passed under a number of other bridges, passed woodland, fields and then the back gardens of some cottages. One garden had in it a life-size statue of a horse, eating the grass, and a Flower Pot Man sitting by the edge of the canal.

Soon we were back at the car park where we had started the walk. See our route on Google Maps.

As it was only about a quarter past eight, we all decided there was time to visit the Barley Mow pub opposite the car park. It was just about warm enough to sit outside for a drink and a chat, although we did make use of the patio heater for a brief period.

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