The Solent Way: Part 1

Yes, it's time for another epic/nearly epic ramble across some diverting part of southern England. Specifically, the Solent. Home turf. Mostly almost completely flat.

Introduction: The geography bit

It may be recalled that in the not-very-distant past I navigated the entire length of the River Itchen, a pleasant but otherwise unremarkable chalk stream that, as you may recall, wends its way from the hills a bit to the left of Winchester into the sea at Southampton. That description is broadly accurate apart from the last bit, because how the water from the Itchen ends up in the English Channel is actually a little more complicated than that and is responsible for the existence of the other footpath in the area.  Southampton, you see, is also the dropping-off point for the River Test, and the end of the Itchen Way is actually at the point where the two rivers meet. The combination of the two watercourses and millennia of subsequent erosion to soft rock means that a massive inlet called Southampton Water lies to the south of the city and carries all the river flow out to the English Channel. Adding to the picture is the lozenge-shaped Isle of Wight, which sits right at the bottom of the estuary and creates a complicated pattern of tides up its two sides (one of the reasons Southampton is such a successful port, as it has so much high water). The main landmass of the island is skewed rather to the left (west) so that a large section its northern shore creates a sheltered channel between Calshot and Keyhaven, which is one clue to how all of what we see today formed. The other is the famous series of chalk stacks (and lighthouse) at the very western tip of the island known as The Needles. These line up so remarkably well with a similar band of chalk on the Isle of Purbeck, some miles along the coast, that looking from above it's quite obvious that these were once joined. In fact during the last Ice Age sea levels were much lower and the northern channel described above was once the mouth of a 'River Solent', part of which still exists as the River Frome.  A narrower Southampton Water would have joined this just below where Selsey Bill is today and it would have been easy to walk across a now-vanished area of land from Purbeck to the Isle of Wight. In fact this appears to have been possible (albeit with wet feet) until a few millennia ago, as Roman buildings have been found in the sea near Yarmouth. At the end of the Ice Age, both glacial meltwater and the interesting process of glacial rebound uplift causing the bottom of Britain to sink flooded the river valley and eroded the chalk, creating what we see today.  If this isn't making much sense, here's a (very) not to scale map illustrating the gist of the last paragraph:

So, where are we going to go?

The boundaries of the Solent aren't officially defined; it is generally reckoned to be the mainland shore that roughly corresponds to that of the Isle of Wight.  However, the boundaries of the Solent Way are very specifically designed to meet up with the Bournemouth Coast Path at one end and the Sussex Border Path at the other, meaning the trail can act as one link in the UK section of the E9 Long-Distance Path. This is a massive 5000km series of paths (not all open as of 2012) up the entire northern coast of Europe, from Cabo de São Vicente in Portugal to Narva-Jõesuu in Estonia.  We're going to be taking in the less giddying prospect of a 63-mile journey from Milford-on-Sea to Emsworth, which involves traversing most of the waterside around Southampton Water and a bit on either side facing out into the sea.  Along the way we'll pass the harbour villages of Lymington and Keyhaven, the New Forest, an oil refinery, beaches, military installations, the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth and the mud flats of Langstone.  Plus quite a lot of boats. And some hovercrafts. 

Obviously, the entirely logical thing to do is to start in the middle:

Southampton to Hamble (10 miles)

The Itchen Way does not have a clearly defined end at Woolston. It just sort-of becomes the Solent Way, shrugging that the river has finished and deciding to merge into a coastal walking route. But there's a little bit of it we need to do before we can reach this point, and that's to start at where we will eventually return by ferry from an earlier stage.

The Hythe Ferry will deposit us right into the middle of Southampton, at Town Quay, which used to be a proper working quay with docks and stevedores swearing and smugglers smuggling and men in flat tweed caps rehearsing sentences starting with 'back in maa day...'. After years of use, then several of disuse, in the 1980s it acquired a car park at the end and some swanky new UPVC-clad buildings, including a Beafeater and various offices and bars, although seems not to be particularly lively these days. Still, it's quite handy to have the ferry deposit passengers here, as it means one can get straight back to walking the Solent Way from Hythe, having missed out about 15 miles otherwise needed to get round the mouth of the River Test.


View Larger Map 

Southampton's docks will be more fully covered in a future leg, as on this particular day the main focus of my interest would actually be departing from them and following, albeit several hundreds yards offshore, the route of The Way (makes it sound kinda' mystical, huh?). This was the Queen Elizabeth, Cunard's latest cruise liner (something which instantly dates this trip to quite some time in the past) which would be making its maiden voyage out into the world from the same berth (give or take) as the Titanic did, hopefully with a somewhat lengthier career afterwards.  There's not a particularly good view of the whole ship from anywhere other than the end of Town Quay - walking along Canute Road past the dock gates the view is largely obscured, thanks to Associated British Ports' public-spirited habit of grabbing all the available waterfront land and peppering it with warehouses, cranes and fences. I will concede that the ship was so bonking enormous this didn't matter much unless you were desperate for a view of the black expanse of hull over that of the decks and funnel, but the point remains.

The path crosses Dock Gate Four and then a level crossing, which used to be traversed quite regularly by boat trains and dock shunters (another line branched off and ran along the road to Town Quay, believe it or not) and still sees regular auto trains taking new cars and vans off to the rest of the country.  I have no idea if any car I've ever owned arrived this way, but it would be nice to think so. More interesting is the building opposite, South Western House, for this was once the main terminus station in the town, and a glorious, solid Victorian structure it remains, even retaining the green-strutted roof that once covered the platforms (and is now, with wearying predictability, a car park).  It was a logical place for trains to terminate, of course, as the docks were so close. You can almost still imagine the smell of steam trains, ladies in elegant frocks and barefoot young lads in clogs running after the tram (Street View, although not containing Edwardians).

After some dreary modern apartments the Way suddenly climbs a flight of steps on to the Itchen Bridge. It forms a long and surprisingly elegant curve over the river, given that essentially it represents an essay on the wonders of modular concrete construction.  What preceded it was wonderful in its idiosyncrasy, a 'floating bridge' chain ferry, fondly remembered by older Southampton residents and with its last incarnation still extant as a restaurant on the Hamble River.  It was even painted by L S Lowry in 1956, using his trademark hurrying stick-figure style. By the 1970s this was considered inadequate to carry the levels of motor traffic of the day (particularly buses which had to make the detour upstream to Northam Bridge to cross the river) and so a toll bridge was erected, towering over the river as the highest construction in the city up to that point. The city council have kept rather quiet about the exact date at which the tolls collected were equal to the cost of the bridge, finding it more convenient just to carry on charging for the privilege of driving from the City to Woolston. I, however, could cross completely free on foot, which had the added bonus of a good view of the Queen Elizabeth still being readied to set sail. There is a rather dense concentration of Samaritans phone numbers up here, complimenting the alarmingly minimalist guard rails. It's a bit windy too, and it has been known for double-decker buses to be diverted in heavy weather conditions. Uphill one side , downhill the other (Street View, and again).

On the Itchen Bridge

Safely on the other side (suicides and gusts of wind are the least of the potential hazards up there, especially after dark), Woolston (Street View) has retained a rather industrial character even with the removal of the Vosper Thornycroft ship factory at the quayside. There's still - still - an vast and embarrassingly empty plot of prime riverside land up for grabs here, which at one point was in line for an ambitious plan involving glass towers and a multi-faith library (Street View). At present its progress has reached the extent of about thirty houses and a new road. We've covered most of this before in the Itchen Way, so we shall jump ahead a few hundred yards down the road to the point where we turn the corner onto a proper expanse of water again at Weston Shore.  Weston (Street View) isn't a particularly nice area inland, but luckily the tower blocks (scheduled for demolition, and not a moment too soon) are segregated from the shore by some trees and a long expanse of lawn, on which has been erected some quasi-artistic benches. They're a little difficult to describe, but sort of naturally rise out of the turf and contain snatches of poetry or descriptions of birds.  There is a beach of sorts here, although it's shingle and mud, not sand, and the water has an awful lot of marine diesel, seaweed and other nasties in it.  There was a sizeable ribbon of people gathered on the shingle to watch the QE go out, but it wasn't moving yet so I pressed on, past play areas and concrete shelters to where the 'coastal road' goes through some woods although the path stays by the water. At this point there was a noise like a thousand trombones in an echo chamber as the biggest hooter within a fifty-mile radius boomed over the water.

Many of pairs of binoculars and camera lenses turned to fix upon the silhouette of the docks, which unfortunately obscured the ship behind a car park and a pair of giant grain silos. I found a convenient spot at the end of a slipway to the shore, and by this time the Queen Elizabeth had rounded the bottom of the docks and was providing an unexpected photo opportunity for commuters on the Isle of Wight ferry. The huge ship slowly processed down the Solent accompanied by yachts and small boats until twenty minutes later it had become a small silhouette rounding the Isle of Wight. I have to conclude that it was somewhat less elegant than its namesake of old, rather more in the 'floating block of flats' style utilised by the majority of modern cruising vessels. I'd moved on by the time it had disappeared.

The next settlement, Netley, is a pleasant village with one main street along the waterside and into the country park at the other end (Street View).  I used to come here a lot as a child, motivated by the possibility of either riding my bike down the slope or, later, breaking numerous bamboo rods in attempting to fly a kite. There's a Victorian church with an octagonal tower standing in the middle of the large lawn, which seems a rather odd entity unless you know what this place used to be (Street View).  It's actually the last remaining part of a huge military hospital which treated patients from the Boer War up to the Second World War, and had its own railway station and cemetery to service this function. The wings were removed in 1966 leaving just the central chapel standing, overlooking the water at the bottom of a slope. I keep meaning to go up the dome but so far have never had a visit coincide with it being open. Ah well, there is still time. 

Having passed through the country park and yacht club, the next bit is rather nondescript shingle with woodland to the left and water to the right.  Across the water is Fawley, a word which, locally, isn't used to signify the town. Instead it describes the far more massive oil refinery and power station that sits on the opposite bank of the Solent and, more controversially, on the edge of the New Forest. Indeed, when we come to walk the section on this side, the complex occupies so much land that the Solent Way doesn't even bother to rejoin the shore after heading inland to cross the Beaulieu River, but cuts across the Forest to Hythe. Piers jut out into the water allowing tankers of various sizes (although not the biggest supertankers, of course) to pump their eye-wateringly valuable cargo into the many storage tanks onshore.  I find it slightly disagreeable that this industrial hinterland exists right next to an outstandingly beautiful area of medieval forest ('New' is relative), but at the same time there was something quite arresting about the equally awesome forest of towers and spires and pipelines and storage tanks, particularly near sunset when all the marker lights and floodlights were on and the massive vapour stack smudged into a clear sky. Is it trite to suggest that this place is a cathedral to our worship of oil, and even majestic in its apocalyptic desolation, full of fire and smoke and metal and black gold?

Insert environmentalist slogan here

Viewed from above (see Google Maps) the storage tanks, with tops in various states of corrosion, appear more than anything like a set of giant paint pots containing shades of red, brown, blue, grey, black, yellow, or green where they have been removed and grass springs up.

Approaching Hamble, there's a much smaller oil terminal on our side of the water, and the Solent Way is shoehorned up a narrow boardwalk underneath a pier, also containing several massive oil pipes.  Up ahead is a white spattering like an Impressionist painting, of yachts parked in the river Hamble, and an area of semi-beach with sandy grasses and woods behind. It's through these woods I go to reach the village proper, and emerge out of a narrow lane in the main street (Street View). As this ends at the riverside in a loop the place is literally a dead-end town, although this is hardly appropriate given that the town is really quite moneyed. It's also a place where a large part of the economy revolves around boats.  Down a slope at the marina is the yacht club, where I played a quartet gig whilst a sixth-former, and the pier that form the terminal for the Hamble-Warsash Ferry, which is where I will resume the trail next time.