Around Farnham, Moor Park and Waverley Abbey

On Friday (20^th February) I walked to Waverley Abbey via Farnham Park, through Farnham town centre. Then across the A31 at Hickley’s Corner to the North Downs Way – Dover 153 miles. Followed the NDW to Moor Park, then along the Greensand Way to Waverley Lane and Waverley Abbey. Further to our Hangers walk the Sunday before, I encountered more literary associations with William Cobbett, albeit with less slithering and sliding in mud. Additionally William Blake, EF Schaumacher, Jonathan Swift. There were various things to reflect on along the Wey, including the changing landscape and land use through the centuries to the present day. 

See also:  Carls Rambles - Literary Walking in Hampshire – a Slippy Slidey Affair

http://www.carlsrambles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/literary-walking-in-hampshire-slippy.html

I wore my wellies as I knew it would be muddy as always through Farnham Park, particularly the top bit, which is clay though there are paved paths, including the NE-SW diagonal from Upper Hale, past the Ranger’s House at the top, then down towards Farnham Castle. Noted when I came to the dip before the hill up to the Castle that there was a hint of a stream flowing in the dry valley here. This was the Nadder Stream which only appears above ground when, like now, the ground is saturated. The rest of the time, it disappears into the chalk here.

From Farnham town centre, I headed out towards Hickley’s Corner via St. Andrew’s churchyard, the Central Car Park, The Maltings, Gostrey Meadow and South Street. Along the fence by Wey near The Maltings footbridge, there were knitted arrows directing people to some sort of knitting event on in The Maltings called Unravel – Keep on , Nearly…

Reaching the road bridge across the river and crossing the road to Gostrey Meadow, I noted that the police station had gone. There was now a gaping hole surrounded by a construction wall. In its place will be yet another block of retirement flats – UK Over 50s Housing Awards, Sunday Times 100 Best Smaller Companies, said  the hoardings.  In the middle of it all  a piling borer - were they prospecting for oil / shale gas? 

Across the bridge to my right, at the junction with Abbey Street, was the William Cobbett pub, William Cobbett was born in Farnham. 

I followed the river through the Gostrey Meadow gardens /park past the War Memorial to South Street. This was the River Wey North Branch which rises on the north side of Alton. It meets the South Branch at Tilford. The water was murky and faster flowing than usual after the rain the day before. Though the Wey has substantial baseflow from the Chalk and Lower Greensand, it rises quickly after heavy rain – as it did over Christmas 2013. Through Gostrey Meadow and across South Street near Home Park House, it filled the overflow area, built after the 1968 floods.

Turning right along South Street, I came to the busy Hickley's Corner crossroads on the A31. Thankfully a pelican crossing, though even with that, people need to care crossing this busy road. It's always been a potentially dangerous junction, particularly when traffic backs up towards the level crossing near Farnham station. Over the years, there have been various proposals to (supposedly) improve the A31 here but they would all have been to the detriment of the town. Even with the bypass which has been there throughout my lifetime, the town centre has always been busy, much of it seemingly through traffic. The basic problem has always been a convergence of main roads (A31, A325, A287), with much of the traffic making for the A31 / Guildford from the M3 to the west. 

Just after Hickley’s Corner, I joined the North Downs Way path: here a track running close to the dual carriageway for a while, behind the garage, then coming down to the River Wey, near where that passed under the dual carriageway.  The path then left the river to pass under the railway. Just after the railway and footpath to High Mill was a pilgrim’s post. 

At the top of the post an oyster shell from Whitstable. Below it, information about a 2013 pilgrimage heading about 200 miles west from Canterbury to Glastonbury. A symbolic journey from the time of Benedictine monk St. Augustine arriving from Rome in 597AD, back to 35AD when Joseph of Arimathea landed in western England. Then lines from William Blake: Jerusalem, 1827. Take time to contemplate – I contemplated the view across the valley to High Mill House, one of the numerous watermills along the River Wey at one time, some cattle, sheep, but also the noise of the A31, a bit further away now towards the Shepherd & Flock roundabout, but still there. Further down, a quote by the scientist RF Buckminster Fuller, of fullerenes fame, “You never change things by the existing reality…only by building a new model which makes the existing one obsolete.”. Then EF Schumacher – Small is Beautiful – from his 1973 book A Study of Economics as if People Mattered . I wish more more modern developers and the world economy generally was geared more this sort of way. 

Moor Park House

Then, I came to  Moor Park Way and turned left towards Moor Park House. crossing the river a low key brick bridge. However, there was nothing low key about the development that has sprung up in the grounds of the house since I was last here, where there had once been a walled garden. I was using an old map (OS Explorer sheet145, dated 1997), it wasn't on that. My guess then is it must have been built sometime since 2000. Hoardings by the lane promoted Country Retreat, along with luxury apartments priced well north of half a million grand. Moor Park always has been a grand, exclusive address, the garden always private. I think I'd feel pretty much the same way if a more-down-to-earth "affordable" housing development had been plonked here: an intrusion on what had been a green, rural riverside. 

Moor Park Heritage Trail

At the gateway to Moor Park College, I joined the bridleway along Moor Park Lane and followed the Heritage Trail past the 1890 gateway with clocktower, then the grand frontage of Moor Park House itself. This dates from the late C17th, the home of the statesman and member of Charles II’s Privy Council, Sir William Temple. He was instrumental in marrying William of Orange to Princess Mary, the daughter of Kings James II. When William became King, he visited the house several times. Temple lived there from 1684 until his death in 1699, cultivating and admiring the gardens. Charles Darwin visited repeatedly during the mid C19th, when it was a hydropathic institution. In effect, he was on a kind of country retreat, like visits to aforementioned development down the road today. During the last century, Moor Park House housed the Canadian Army in WWII; as bought by Canon Parsons and turned into Moor Park College. I vaguely remember that still being in existence in the 1970s, and in the 1990s judging from the OS map. After that a finishing school, the Constance Spry Flower School, then finally the “stylish offices” of Link Connect from 2000. 

There are also associations with Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. He'd been Sir William Temple’s secretary. There was a young daughter of a maid there who he helped educate. He called her Stella and wrote about her in the “Journal” poems, hence Stella Lodge at the other end of the lane.

A few yards further along, a bit about the grand extensive Moor Park Garden, began in Temple’s time, then added to by subsequent generations of his family. It stretched down towards the river which was once channelled to feed a fountain. William Cobbett passed this way in the C19th, praising the garden and admiring the flowers. He wrote about it in The English Gardener, 1833. Though he speaks of looking at it for several hours at a time, it sounds as if he didn't get to go in. He had to view from the outside through a gap in the wall. 

Mother Ludlam's Cave

Further along, on the left was Mother Ludlam’s Cave. The cave was blocked off by an ornate looking gateway, much the same as the one here in 1906. Around it and arch of stonework stretching back to the cliff formed of the Lower Greensand Folkestone Beds. A spring flowed out of the gate forming a rivulet across the track. After drying up for a time, it was restored by the monks of Waverley Abbey. A Mother Ludlam lived there later on, dishing out various utensils to the locals, until she got cross when her cauldron went missing. Lud is derivation of loud, meaning bubbling in the watery sense. At the far end of the lane was Stella Lodge, where tree fellers were up a tall tree working.

The Wey through the trees near Moor Park

Stella Lodge

Waverley Abbey

From Stella Lodge, I turned right down Waverley Lane – tricky road this with blind bends – and crossed the Wey at Waverley Bridge. Here, a drop down in water level, with plenty of rapid frothy flow through the sluice and under an old brick structure on the Abbey side.  Entering the Abbey grounds from the car park, with the lake on my right and the C18th house up the slope beyond it. The Abbey ruins were on my left. The River Wey enclosed it in a loop around the meadow, flowing behind what would have been the monks’ dormitories. The Abbey was Cistercian, founded in 1128. 

It was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536. Near where the Abbey Church had been was the yew tree featuring in my father’s wood engraving. I wouldn’t mind coming back here myself sometime and sketching the twisting, knotted roots with their subtle colours. I know some yews around England can be many centuries old, but this one must have post dated the dissolution of the Abbey as it was growing on what would have been the north wall of the church, not far from the high altar. A tree growing through the wall would have no doubt intruded on the monks' prayers.

I ate my rolls on the east side of the ruins, by the River Wey, sat on one of the concrete WWII anti-tank defences. I contemplated what I’d learned on the Moor Park Heritage trail, by the pill box, about the ditches by the lake and anti-tank defences by the river being set up to trap the invading enemy in the meadow, thereby turning it into a killing field. A chilling thought amid the tranquility I’ve known here all my life. The numerous pillboxes, anti-tank blocks around north Hampshire and along the North Downs area were part of the WWII GHQ Line, built to defend against the Germans invading London by land from the south.

Anti-tank defences, Waverley Abbey

Anti-tank defences, Waverley Abbey

Yew tree, Waverley Abbey

High Mill House

Leaving the Abbey, I walked back much the same way until Moor Park gate, when I crossed the road and followed the bridleway straight on and turned left onto the footpath towards the river at High Mill House. I crossed what would have been the millstream as I walked across their driveway and through the gate at the other end. Shortly after crossing the Wey again, I rejoined the NDW and headed into Farnham and back through the lower end of the Park. By now, I my feet were quite tired after walking all day in wellies.