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| Pond Fishing at Meon Springs |
He said:
A great day for walking the rural path; sun, a few clouds, and a slight breeze.
There was long a series of downs, ups, and downs on the path today, where all the villages are down in the valleys and all the Iron age forts are on the highest peaks. Old Winchester Hill is the site of a large Iron age fort. These forts generally consist of little evidence today of what it was like back in the day, but the dirt ramparts in this fort have been restored to what the experts think they were like, and the visitor does get a good sense of the advantage of being well above any invaders climbing the hill.
The valleys of the area have been farmed for well over 2000 years, and the churches date from the 1100's to the 1200's. We stopped at the old church in Exton for a quick look and found it not only very old, but also very well maintained. When you get away from the villages, you are really out in the quiet countryside. The fragrances of spring flowers, new grass, farm animals, and Hawthorn fill the air. We found a small oasis for fly fishermen at Meon Springs, a small stream was controlled to create a quiet pool of water, where folks pay to be able to fish. There were a few dozen fishermen standing and waiting for their reward.
Although the walk to East Meon today was only 9 miles long, the bottom of my feet started to feel it in the the end. We saw a few horseback riders and a couple of cyclists, since the route is open to both in many places. The mud was deep and very mucky in places, it was hard to get through in a few places. You can understand the soggy conditions from the amount of rain they have had in the last few months.
We arrived at our Inn before the 3PM deadline, so we could get our room and start our daily laundry ritual. Otherwise, we would needed to hang around until 6PM, when the employees returned.
We heard that today was the warmest day of the year so far... and tomorrow would be even warmer with no rain in sight…. how nice for us!
She said:
A bit more about our stay at Corhampton Farm -
Corhampton Farm is an "arable" farm, meaning that they grow crops, not animals. The farmhouse is big and rambling and delightful. Our hostess, Suzanne, is warm and friendly, as are her kids (2 of the 3 that we saw) and her husband, who taxied us to and from The Shoe last night. Breakfast was big and hearty and conversation with our fellow walkers staying at the Farm was interesting and happy.
Charles (Suzanne's husband) comes from a farming family - several generations. His father and uncles even had tea farms in Sri Lanka. He lives now in an apartment on the farm that Charles and Suzanne have converted from the original stables. The rest of the stables have been converted to offices, and they seem to have high end tenants - attorneys, architects, etc. This is all a hedge against a bad year for crops - one bad year without another income and all can go to hell. I imagine that's why Suzanne keeps a B+B, too.
So, off we went, back up Beacon Hill and over to East Meon.
Down the other side, through a gate and into a field of extremely lazy cows and their even lazier bull. They were all gathered around the gate and seemed unconcerned that we needed to pass. After a minute of sizing us up and realizing we were no threat to him or his gals, the bull moved and everyone else then moved, too.
A murder of crows urged us on our way.
We popped out in Exton (we stayed on the edge of Exton in Corhampton last night) and stopped in to check out the 13th century church of St. Peter & St. Paul. A lovely couple, who was polishing the brass candlesticks, told us not to miss a headstone from 1780 that had been brought in from the adjacent churchyard to preserve it. It is very intricately carved, for the period, and depicts the Angel of Death summoning a Scholar from his books. Creepy and wonderful at the same time. They also pointed out the 5 needlepoint kneeling cushions at the altar railing - depicting the 2 churches of their diocese connected by a bridge over the River Meon to the other 2 churches in their diocese. They seemed particularly proud of the fact that their church cushion showed a large bat on the roof, as they have bats in their church so felt the need to portray life in their church accurately.
We next climbed up Winchester Hill, and followed the path out to a car park where we came upon a man having a very bad day - he had pulled his car over to the side of the (very narrow) road to let a larger van pass in the opposite direction, drove into a sharp, large piece of lumber and ended up with a 6" gash in his tire, now completely flat. Since he had only been out to run a short errand, he didn't have his cell phone. A previous passing motorist had tried to call road service, couldn't get reception, so took off down the hill to call. Supposedly all was arranged, but the road service called back the other cell phone, no one answered, so they never came. When we happened along, he had been waiting 2 1/2 hours. We let him try our cell phone (thank you, David, whose UK phone we borrowed for our trip and good thing as my AT&T international plan for my iPhone wasn't working and didn't work last time I bought the package either and even though I turned the phone completely off the second day we were here, I still received a text from AT&T saying that I had over extended my plan. That should be fun to sort out when we return - it might be a flu.)
Anyway, he got a signal, called road service (like our AAA), connected, and no one knew who he was or what he was talking about. To add insult to injury, they put him on hold for 15 minutes, while we all waited and chatted. The woman on the other end finally came back on and it took another 10 minutes for her to understand his directions on how to get there. We left him hoping for the best but wouldn't be surprised if he had to walk home (5miles) and either get help from there or slit his wrists.
(Must remember to email David and ask for more minutes to be added to the phone.)
Since we had been waylaid by our Good Samaritan act, we really had to hoof it to make it to our accommodations for the night - Ye Old George Inn - because the window of check-in closed shut at 3 pm and didn't open again until 6 pm. We made it fine, checked in, showered, did some laundry and set off to explore the village (all 3 streets of it).
East Meon:
The church seems huge for such a small village, it maybe that it serves the entire surrounding area.
The most interesting things about the church, to me, are the needlepoint seat and kneeling cushions that each parishioner makes for her family spot in the pew. I took loads of pictures of them - some are just wacky and have nothing to do with church, which I liked. The pics are included in today's folio.
Some really, really, really old houses.
A small general shop.
Two pubs (for a village of 3 streets - not bad!)
East Meon was initially settled in the 6th century by some Danes, called Meon. In the Middle Ages, the Bishop of Winchester built a giant courthouse here, and it still stands (it is now a private home - very posh).
In 1644, during the Civil War, the Parliamentarians stole the lead lining from the church font to make bullets. (Probably not a bad thing because it can't be very good to be baptizing babies in a font lined with lead.)
Hitler dropped 38 high explosive bombs and 3500 incendiary bombs in the parish. The only loss of life, however, was a pig.
The Royal Navy had a signal school here in 1941.
Since then, it has been quiet and sleepy. Lots of horses.
(The decommissioned Navy site is now a "Natural Burial" site - and it is everything you might imagine. Organic, biodegradable shrouds and/or coffins, horse drawn carts, graves dug by hand (!) and no permanent headstones. Again, creepy but wonderful.)
We are snug in our tiny room, surrounded by our drying laundry, getting ready to head down to the pub to finish our day. We know there are some other walkers staying here, so there may be tales to be heard (and to tell.)
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