TADS #51:Liphook to Petersfield (or Lissing With Confidence).

Calling TADS' September walk this year Lissing With Confidence was something of a mistake. Not because it was a bad walk but because it was one I didn't handle particularly confidently. We take a wrong turn or two on most walks we make but it's been a while (maybe not since the infamous Groombridge disaster of 2016) since I'd dragged us so far in the wrong direction.

As with September 2020's walk in and around Salisbury, much of the problem - when it came to correcting ourselves - came from the fact that so much land in this area is in private ownership. The right to ramble in Britain, it seems, is forever hard earned. As Shep correctly pointed out, if you owned a sign painting business specialising in signs reading PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO ACCESS you'd be quids in.

 

Not that money seems much of an issue to many of those living in this part of Hampshire. I can't see the cost of living crisis deeply affecting many of the people of Liphook and Liss. Perhaps that's why it's such a staunch Tory area. The local Conservative MP, Damian Hinds, enjoys a roughly twenty thousand seat majority.

But, despite a wrong turn and despite being in Tory heartlands, a good day was eventually had by all. I'd risen early, hopped on the 63 bus to Peckham Rye, taken the Overground to Clapham Junction and met Pam there, yet again, in the waiting room on plaform nine. When our train stopped at Woking we were joined by Shep, Adam, and James. It was James' first time on a TADS walk and I hope it's not his last one. He knows more about waterfowl than Shep.

Once Adam had made friends with a fellow 'gamer' on the train, we all arrived in the flowery town of Liphook. Just as the skies opened up. But after a brief wait that turned to drizzle and finally stopped. We walked past the splendid looking Living Room Cinema and the inviting looking Royal Anchor pub to the Lazy Lizard Cafe. The menu was minimal but they had veggie sausage sandwiches and most of us fancied that.

So we ordered them, sat down, and then were told they didn't actually have any veggie sausages (something you think they might have known before accepting our orders). The alternative of a mushroom and egg sandwich was no good for vegans and didn't sound great anyway so we got a refund and headed across to the unwieldy titled L&S Gift & Coffee House.

The lemurs on the wallpaper and the general decor certainly met with Pam's approval and the brie and cranberry panini I had (washed down with a mint choc chip milkshake) was bloody good too. The staff were friendly and though they forgot Shep's order they didn't take too long rustling something up for him. I noted that the L&S do cocktails etc; in the evening and though the spot by the side of the B2131 isn't the most amazing I can imagine it being a rather pleasant place to waste a night.

We, of course, had to move on. But not until I'd rattled off some brief spiel about Liphook. The first record of the place dates to 1281 when it belonged to a 'Robert of Lupe' (misheard by Pam as Robert (Hampson) of the band Loop). Over the centuries various lupes, lhupes, and leopes have held it and its name has gone from Lepoke to Lippocke to Lippuck before finally, or perhaps not, settling on Liphook.

Earlier Liphook folk had arrived here to escape the marshes around the river Wey and to evade the taxes of local lords (so the posh nobs have long held sway in the region). Liphook became a coaching stop between Portsmouth and London and it is rumoured that Nelson spent his last night in Liphook before departing for 1805's Battle of Trafalgar.

The poet Flora Thompson (Lark Rise to Candleford) lived in Liphook while her husband was postmaster (possibly in the post office below?) and during WWI & WWII it was a base for Canadian troops. Sir Terence Conran went to school in Liphook and Ken Wood (of Kenwood Masterchef fame) died here in 1997.

We left Liphook on the Longmoor Road. A short and fairly uneventful stretch that took us to the attractive Deers Hut pub in Griggs Green. It was too early for a pit stop but we lost as much time as if we'd have one anyway because it was here I took us in the wrong direction.

Not that I'd realise that for another couple of miles. Two paths cut south after the pub and they run parallel. Or at least they do to begin with. The one we should have been on soon starts curling west towards Liss. The one we were on was curling east back towards Liphook. It started to dawn on me that I'd fucked up and I wasn't sure if we should return or should we try and ready ourselves by taking the next available path to the right. Adam, and his GPS gadget, soon came in very handy.

James, Pam, and myself stopped to look at some ailing hornets, we observed a proud equestrian statue of Hugh Henry Rose, 1st Baron Strathairn (a Field Marshall in the Crimear War, the Indian Rebellion, and the Egyptian-Ottoman War), looked out to some peaceful waters, and asked a friendly couple of walkers coming in the other direction if they could help us.

When I saw the route they'd taken I realised what had gone wrong with ours but we were too far gone to turn back and Adam, correctly, pointed out we'd soon be able to correct ourselves. In a somewhat circuitous fashion to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of the landed gentry.

We were taken first along the side of a golf course and then into a large forest. My feet now gout free I walked some distance ahead of the group just to see what it was like (and because I didn't want them to tell me off for ballsing up).

I had to stop, though, when I reached a blue plaque for Tony Adams' Sporting Chance Clinic. I had no idea it was centred here. But then I'd not really thought about it. It was a bonus we'd not have seen if we'd taken our planned route. Which, with Adam's help, we eventually picked up. It was still some distance through the forest, though, before we reached the village of Liss Forest.

It didn't make for unpleasant walking but it was quite a stretch. The best part of 20,000 steps notched up before our first pub stop in the thirsty (if people's recycling bins are anything to go by) village of Liss Forest. Darren, Cheryl, and Tommy (and Luca) were waiting for us in the garden of The Temple Inn and, inevitably, a two pint mistake happened as Tommy demonstrated his athletic abilities while explaining he'd hung his football boots up after a successful, yet short, career in the game to focus on basketball.

It was good to see them and it would have been nice to have a longer catch up, not least on their annivsary weekend - it was my parents' wedding anniversary too - but I run a tight TADS ship and it was time to head down to the railway line and dip through another field towards the Liss Riverside Railway Walk which we'd follow into Liss proper.

Evidence of Neolithic, Palaeolithic, and Mesolithic activity has been found around Liss including spearheads, arrowheads, and scrapers. In the time of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) there was a mill but the earliest mention of Liss comes later that century in 1086's Domesday Book. In the 19c Liss was known for producing peppermint and the darts player Cliff Lazarenko was born here (he's not Welsh - Pam seemed to think ALL darts players are Welsh). Another Liss notable is Minnie Driver who once lived here.

On that we'd follow, roughly, the route of the river Rother. A thirty-two mile river that's come from Empshott and ends up flowing into the Arun near Pulborough. There's a bench dedicated to someone with the excellent name of Gillian Woodcraft and a plaque marking a list of films made on the Longmoor Military Railway Filmset.

Highlights included The Lady Vanishes (with Margaret Lockwood and Reg Varney), The Railway Children, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (starring Ingrid Bergman), Weekend with Lulu (Bob Monkhouse AND Leslie Phillips), Runaway Railway (Ronnie Barker), and The Magnificent Two (with Morecambe and Wise).

We crossed a level crossing (four of us waiting for the trains, Adam diverting over a bridge) and wandered through pretty Liss before a path took us through a tidy orchard area and out on to a quiet, if hilly, back road that eventually became a track. We looked at the huge Dragon House (current value - £2,200,000) and then took a bridge over the railway line which took us along another road and then a path alongside the busy A3 London-Portsmouth dual carriageway.

Thankfully, we weren't on it that long and our path soon peeled off into the picturesque village of Sheet (which I had spent the whole day mixing up with the nearby Steep). Though I admired the church and a lovely row of cottages it was the Queen's Head, and its big leafy garden, that looked the most inviting. 

I'd estimated we had time for one more pub stop but as James needed to get back to Petersfield so that he could pick his sister up at Stansted Airport later that evening it seemed unfair to send him on the last mile or two alone. So we didn't stop. Adam joking that it looked the sort of pub I'd probably meet the future Mrs Evans in!

Another stretch along roads busy and less so took us, finally, into Petersfield and  near the oldest remaining private house in Petersfield (once owned by the Gammon family - told you it was a true blue Tory zone) we bade adieu to James and stopped in The Good Intent for one last drink before hitting The Spice Lounge.

Petersfield, as you may have noticed from the sign above, is twinned with Barentin in France and Warendorf in Germany and counts among its notables William Cowper (an esteemed anatomist), Miranda Hart, Alec Guinness (buried here), and Mark Owen of Take That who calls the town home. It was founded during the 12c by William Fitz Robert, the 2nd Earl of Gloucester and the market square has a statue of William II. As one of only five such statues in the UK it attracts Orangemen in mid-July to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne. A battle that happened in 1690.

It's probably time they got over it. Petersfield is not far from where some of us grew up but apart from Adam (who'd had an altercation with the police here about thirty-five years) ago we'd never visited. I'd imagined a smaller and less interesting version of Basingstoke (think Andover) but it was far prettier and quite a bit livelier than that.

The Spice Lounge was certainly buzzing. The tudor panelled restaurant was pretty much packed solid but the service was still decent and four Bangla beers were on our table in no time. Separate sections on the menu for veggie and vegan food impressed us too and I had a lal kudo aloo (sweet pumpkin and potatoes with a Gujarati spice) and shared some pilau rice with Adam. Predictably, it defeated me but it was good.

Adam shot off home and Pam, Shep, and myself repaired to The Square Brewery for one last drink. We sat outside as a rock band inside ploughed away at standards (though luckily we left before inevitable renditions of Sex On Fire and Mr Brightside). The local Tesco was closed and there was no off license for train booze but Shep managed to score three cans of Stella in the station off a guy who had a box of the stuff. I'm not that keen on beer in cans (it tastes tinny) but I had one anyway. 

Shep hopped off at Woking, Pam at Clapham Junction, and I went all the way to Waterloo before ending the day, as it began, on that 63 bus. It'd been something an old fashioned TADS (wrong turns, lower numbers, booze on the train, and even a very amusing game of Heads Up - Minnie Driver even cropped up for the second time in the day) but that didn't turn out to be a bad thing at all. Despite the brief downpour, despite the lack of veggie sausages, and despite all the bloody private property we managed to have a good day. We're doing it all again in October. This time from Merstham to Croydon in a walk that was postponed last year. As ever I can hardly wait.