WALK WITH GILBERT

The wooded escarpment that forms an impressive backdrop to The Wakes is climbed by a path aptly called The Zig-Zag. Cut out by Gilbert White and his brother John in the early 1750s, this path runs from the southern edge of Selborne village car park, “rising 300 feet above the village… The covert of this eminence is altogether beech,” wrote Gilbert. The summit offers a stunning vista over Selborne and the wooded countryside below, all the way to Alice Holt Forest and into leafy Surrey.

The beech glades of Selborne Common can be readily explored from here.