please empty your brain below
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Small mystery solved. When I was at college in Portsmouth, there were trolleybuses (yup, that long ago!)that had 'Warsash' on their destination blind. It seemed far away and I was never inspired to make the trip but, thanks to your description, at least I now know what is there.
RayL | 25.10.15 - 7:59 a.m. | #
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Another alight-short board-after "return trip". Do you specialise in these? I liked the commentary style, even though the reason is a bit suspect. (We're a lazy lot, granted, but this walk, on a different day, comes well up in the list of "DG walks worth emulating").
Malcolm | 25.10.15 - 8:29 a.m. | #
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Dear DG, a few years ago, you used to tease us the day before these rail trips with some facts which had us guessing of your eventual destination, something you no longer do. I really used to enjoy that aspect, never getting any destination correct apart from one I seem to recall. Please, please, would you bring this 'teaser' element of the trip back?
I'm aware that this would involve you in even more work whilst writing and editing 'the blog', but your writing is so engrossing and my definite first read of the day with the morning's 'wake-up' coffee.
How much time I've probably wasted (meant in the nicest way) trying to solve your clues is nobodies guess!
Thank-you for a very enjoyable blog and daily (multiple-times) read.
Happy Harry | 25.10.15 - 8:29 a.m. | #
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Happy Harry (great tag by the way), if you care to follow DG's twitter feed you will occasionally get a teaser.
Dave | 25.10.15 - 8:53 a.m. | #
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Hamble Halt is a very basic concrete platform affair with no frills. So you didn't miss anything in architectural terms. But what you did miss was the chance to walk down the long disused railway siding to Hamble le Rice village. This surprisingly rural track runs across part of Hamble airfield to the oil terminal (sadly no longer rail connected).
petras409 | 25.10.15 - 8:53 a.m. | #
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Yes, lived in Portsmouth too, but more recently than the era of trolley buses. For a random night, or even day out on occasion we'd take the train to Bursledon and have a drink or two in the Jolly Sailor. A very fine spot indeed.
Malcolm, yes creating open jaw rail tickets from cheap day returns is a cunning way to devise a non circular walk. I'm sure there's loads of examples on the South Coast. A London to Chichester ticket would I'm sure be valid anywhere between Brighton and Havant. Of course one can just alight short to do something like Harwich to Manningtree but I think it works best when there are two routes to a place. One could travel out to Reigate and walk to Dorking returning from there by rail with a Betchworth ticket for example. Walking from Great Chesterford to Royston (on a Cambridge ticket) along the Icknield Way is another favourite. The possibilities are endless of course.
Lorenzo | 25.10.15 - 9:13 a.m. | #
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A minor correction to RayL. It was Southdown route 45 that went to Warsash; the corporation trolleybuses only went as far as Cosham.
3078260061 | 25.10.15 - 9:18 a.m. | #
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I've a special liking for Netley and there is actually a further reminder of its days as a military hospital in terms of a quiet and scenic cemetery on the inland side of the park: https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=netley+cemetery
Other nearby places I like (for no particular reason) are Totton and Emsworth, and another area I've been meaning to visit, since it featured on Time Team, is around Gosport including the former Haslar Hospital.
As a result of recent (unconnected) visits to i) the Hunterian Museum and ii) Charlton House, I was able to match a pair of clues that indicate the hospital at Sidcup was once at least partly a military one. Captions to some WW1 reconstructive surgery photos at the Hunterian medical museum were captioned "at Queen's Hospital, Sidcup"... and the 'Ask Me' volunteers with the wartime display at Charlton House were able to confirm that this would indeed have been a reference to what is now known as Queen Mary's Hospital.
RogerW | 25.10.15 - 9:54 a.m. | #
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As a Southampton lad I used to visit Netley and Hamble from time to time in the 1980s and 90s, and the Royal Victoria Country Park was a good Sunday afternoon trip. I think they had a bus rally and county show(s) there.
It was only more recently I think that I learnt of the "-le-Rice" extension to Hamble's name. Perhaps the locals resurrected it.
I would have been very impressed if trolleybuses had reached Warsash - which I see has been corrected above.
I once walked from Southampron to Portsmouth over two days, breaking my journey at Warsash after catching the ferry - I don't think it was pink then.
Oh, and yes it's Bursledon not Burseldon, for some reason.
Thank you DG!
Stephen | 25.10.15 - 10:28 a.m. | #
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Vivid description.
I have never seen curlews (obviously should get out more.)
Bob Lindsay-Smith | 25.10.15 - 12:48 p.m. | #
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Sounds like you missed out on one of Farehams best assets - Lardy Cake from Soothills Bakery.
Matthew Smith | 25.10.15 - 6:25 p.m. | #
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Good stuff. Very pleasant walk - but as you said, best at lowish tide. Have you got the other half of this walk to Gosport pencilled in for next year - Diving Museum and to-be-reopened Hovercraft Museum? On the other side of the water, Hythe is nothing to write home about it, but does have a bobbydazzler of a train-along-pier/ferry combo to Southampton.
GJ | 26.10.15 - 7:30 a.m. | #
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I'm a volunteer at the Bursledon Brickworks Museum, where I work on restoring old steam engines and horse-powered clay pugmills etc.
Sunday 1st November is our final big steam-up day of this year, with guest traction engines, and our usual array of stalls and displays. Do come along.
http://www.bursledonbrickworks.org.uk/whats_on.php#events
John "Joho" Maltby | 26.10.15 - 9:39 a.m. | #
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Takes me back to my youth in the late 1980s /early 1990s - I used to be a member of the Netley Sailing Club (the last building along the seashore in the Queen Victoria Country Park), yes, the one with all the dinghies parked next to it :-).
Paid a return visit with the wife & Kids in May this year - the views are as "picturesque” as ever, but the size of the ships making their way up to Southampton are much more impressive than they used to be!
Mark | 26.10.15 - 9:58 a.m. | #
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Another interesting write up from DG - and it's down my neck of the woods for once! Nice to read about others ventures in the area and a reminder that I still haven't visited Holly Hill! The map of your walk is appreciated.
DaveK | 29.10.15 - 3:03 p.m. | #
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