Country walk: West Stoke Down
This walk of 3.8-mile (6.2kms) takes you over the hill and far away across the wide open spaces of West Stoke Down. There is a small parking bay along the Lavant to West Stoke road at SU835084 where a bridle way runs north.
The village name derives from OE stoc which meant a place, homestead, monastery cell, or just group of dwellings. You climb upwards for a mile with the fine view of the channel coast and Isle of Wight expanding behind you. The clump of trees at the top mark the spot of a beacon warning post from the Napoleonic wars. Ahead is the nature reserve of Kingley Vale with its forest of 30,000 yew trees, the finest in Europe.
Look to your right into the valley of Langford farm and you may. If the light is right, be able to see the remains of a stone-age flint mine complex that was bulldozed flat in the 1940s to make a prairie field for growing corn. Many of these fields around you were ancient sheepgrazed downland flower meadows where the rare juniper bushes grew, wild orchids flourished, and rare birds such as stone curlew, stonechat, whinchat, and grey partridge bred in great numbers. Back in the 1960s I remember counting one hundred hares one March evening. Very little wild life remains there now.
Turn left when you reach the junction. This takes you downhill to the entrance to Kingley Vale reserve. In the 1960s I helped build the small field centre there with another warden named Eric Pithers, who as a sergeant in the RAF had flown 30 bombing missions as tail gunner in a Lancaster.
Keep straight on on the bridleway running south-west which brings you to the minor road at Wood End. Turn left along the road for another mile back towards your car. You pass Hollandsfield Lodge which is where the ‘Jersey Lily’ lived in the 1880s. Her real name was Lily Langtry, friend of Oscar Wild, J.M. Barry, and the Prince of Wales. She was a celebrated beauty of her day, a famous actress who toured Europe. South Africa and the USA. She made a sensation being the first society woman to go on the stage. She loved her little dogs and theya re buried in the garden with their own headstones. One of them to Nell ‘Her parentage is wrapped in mystery. Died from injuries sustained while in the performance of her duties, being spike through the chest while pursuing a rabbit in Kingley Bottom. In her, Jordan the Rat Catcher lost a source of income and Patrick de Bathe an affectionate and beloved companion.’
De Bathe was Lily’s husband. Another memorial is to Chumps. ‘Once lady champion Bull Dog of England, winner of sixty-two prizes, twenty-five firsts. Born 10 September 1897. Died 1 April 1906. Erected by her sorrowing mistress, Violet de Bathe. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.’
The third reads ‘Here lies the remains of Tyke. A small rough haired fox terrier. Unequalled as a sportsman. Who accidentally hung himself April 14 1893. Erected in his memory by his master, Hugo de Bathe.’ The fourth is to Myra, ‘a little roughhaired terrier, a most promising sportswoman’ but lived for less than a year. ‘No sooner here than done for, can’t think what I was begun for.’
In West Stoke hamlet you will pass St. Andrews with its cork oak tree and its Norman nave nestling near the white C18 house and cedar tree.