Woolbeding to Titty Hill

This is another place to see high forest butterflies which I described last week. Go now, they won’t last much longer this year. The walk is three miles (4.

8kms) and starts in National Trust car park on Woolbeding Common, just over two miles north-west of Midhurst on Linch Road which goes on to Liphook: grid ref.

SU 853254,

This is wonderful country with its hills and vales of the Weald with forests and farms and moorland making one think of Wales.

I walked for about a mile down the road to Redford village with woods all around and not too much traffic but you should think about keeping a dog on the lead.

Place names with ‘Red’ as the prefix can originate from several objects.

Usually ‘hreod’ (reeds), ‘reod’ (clearing in the forest), ‘read’ (red earth), or ‘Raedla’ (the name of a Saxon person).

But in this case I suppose a ford over the steam where reeds grow might fit.

We are after all near a swamp and this is what we are going to walk all around.

Just beyond Redford Farm there is a footpath to the left into fields which are a Farm Conservation Zone with thick hedges and some old oaks.

This should make countryside for turtle doves, which are now becoming extinct in the countryside.

We come to Slaphurst Farm and follow the footpath signs around it in a circle.

The name derives from OE ‘slat’ which means a low dell and ‘hurst’ is woodland.

This brings us to Lambourne Lane which runs south.

It leads into what can become a swamp in wet weather but all the more interesting for that.

The wet ground demands strong boots in winter but I have walked through here in summer in sandals. Horsetails grow by the path.

I have seen a grey wagtail in the past which is a bird of streams and lakes.

There are embankments either side that tell of this route being a shaw or safeway, in medieval times.

The pond to the left has a designation of antiquity according to the OS map and also the shape of a hammer pond.

It seems to be fed by springs arising from under Woodbeding Common and drained by Hammer Stream at its causeway.

For this walk we need to stay on the purple arrow through the swamp.

You will pass on the way carpets of lesser periwinkle covering the ground.

Follow the path up to Titty Hill where the road from Milland ends.

I was heading for Wispers

Copse, where, four hundred yards on south from the hamlet, I am at the woodland where the white admiral, purple emperor, and purple hairstreak butterflies might be seen.

I turned sharp left on blue arrow when I came to open rushy meadows.

This area was buzzing with dragonflies.

I have seen the emperor dragonfly here.

At the end of the second of these meadows take either of the two yellow arrow footpaths which ascend the hill back up to the carpark.

This can all be a jungle and I have been lost inside this wood in the past.