Cheriton

Radar over at Keep Your Powder Dry recently posted an entry on the Battle of Cheriton including some photos from a walk around the battlefield. The specific post can be found here, but if you haven't visited the blog before, and have an interest in the ECW, it is well worth the time. As well as Cheriton he covers other ECW sites:

https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2019/06/battle-of-cheriton-29th-march-1644.html

That post reminded me of a hot day in July last year when I took myself down to Hampshire to do the walk myself. Summer 2018 was one of the hottest ever recorded in the UK, so it wasn't the most comfortable weather to go traipsing round the countryside in. But I had some time off work whilst the family were at work and school, and what better way to use it than indulging my hobby and getting some exercise. The health app on my phone tells me I walked 11.3km that day, most of it at the time of the Cheriton walk. I find it a bit of a stretch that the walk was over 6 miles, so I don't take that as Gospel.

I won't tell you anything about the battle itself. That has been done many times before, by people better qualified, and better writers, than myself. For example: Here; and here.  And that's not including printed material. I should also point out the Battle of Cheriton Project site  here. For some reason I haven't figured out yet, it holds a fascination for me similar to what I feel about Lobositz in the SYW. Only this is much more accessible. It's on my 'to do list' of battles. In fact it was the main target I built up my cavalry forces so much this year. Maybe it's something for the coming weekend. Hmmmm!

Anyway, here are a selection of the photos I took on my walk round Cheriton last year. Hopefully they will be of some interest and use, giving an impression of the lie of the land. First up Church of All Saints, Hinton Ampner. The village didn't seem to feature much in the battle, the manor (now a National Trust property) was where Waller was headquartered before the battle. The church I found particularly attractive and unusual in my experience and looks like it deserves a closer look, but as it was at the start of a longish walk, on a hot day I decided to push on.

More information on the church can be found here: https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101155865-church-of-all-saints-bramdean-and-hinton-ampner#.XTDXzC2ZOu4
The location map on the British Listed Buildings site is quite useful for showing the pathways around the battlefield.

I walked down the hill from the church through the very picturesque hamlet of Hinton Ampner to start the walk proper at Petersfield Road stopping at the first information board:

From there I proceeded across the road to lane opposite (Broad Lane?) (below)

and then turned right (East) along Cheriton Lane (note this is the track running east-west between Cheriton Wood and Cheriton village and not the road of the same name to the north of the wood.

Here is the view looking west from Broad Lane at where the main Parliamentarian line would have been. Erratum: subsequent viewing of the Battlefield Trust's OS-based map indicates that the area shown below is too far south for the Parliamentarian position - it looks like they would have marched through this position on the way to the next ridge.
 

The trees in the centre left look like a wood but are in actual fact just a row of trees bordering Petersfield Road.

Looking up Broad Lane - this gives you a good impression of how formidable some of the hedgerows could be. I don't know if these hedges were there in 1644 (it's never wise to assume the landscape is really as timeless as the usual romantic view of the countryside would have us believe) but most accounts say how the Royalist cavalry were particularly hampered in their deployment by hedges lining lanes to the north of here. Also given the time of year of the battle (March) there would have been a lot less foliage to obscure visibility. Without the leaves in March it would probably just about be possible to poke a musket through and see your target, but not in summer. And they're far too high to see over. However, they may well have been lower and thinner in the seventeenth century if they were planted around new enclosures.

Just before Cheriton Lane meets Petersfield Road, there is a short footpath connecting the lane to Alresford Lane. This is where I went wrong. I was following directions which said turn left (north) along Alresford Lane and head up along a field boundary. In the field there is a broad track which seemed to fit the bill. It was only when I reached the top corner of the field I found myself hemmed in by hedges to the right and in front. I'd missed the gap through to Alresford Lane. I was on the wrong side of the hedge. Faced with the choice of doubling back or somehow squeezing through the hedge, I took the latter course and found out just how formidable these hedges can be! It would be virtually impossible to get through with a pike, or with a horse at all without the help of pioneers cutting a way through, let alone be in any kind of condition to fight formed opposition on the other side. Never complain about big movement penalties for crossing hedges - they're not the twee little things we have round our gardens! It would have been much easier to continue on Cheriton Lane to the road and then head up Alresford Lane from the road.

Once back on the proper track, I followed it north up past the edge of a spur of Cheriton Wood. From a distance it looks particularly dense but the leaves give a slightly misleading impression. It's a bit clearer close up as the following shows. Not ideal country for formed pike and shot units, but passable to musketeers.

Slightly further north the edge of the wood is further back, east, from the lane and you can see here how it is on a pronounced slope. I didn't walk up there, but it's not difficult to see how it would have a commanding view of the battlefield.

The lane continues in a northerly direction towards the area of the Royalist start positions and eventually comes out on the road called Cheriton Lane where it becomes Badshear Lane. Continuing north on the road for a hundred yards or so, I route-marched to a bend in the road where it turns east and a quarter of a mile later arrived at the T-junction with Scrubbs Lane where the monument below was installed in the 1970s.

I'd held off drinking any water until this point so rewarded myself by having a good long swig and sat down for lunch on the bench with this panorama before me. Apologies for the distortion - I haven't got the hang of the panorama facility.

After lunch I hot-footed it back down the road, west, then south west for about 1/2mile where there is a large modern barn by the road and junction with a track called Hinton Lane. I took the lane due south to Dark Lane which heads slightly more south west to New Cheriton. I'd stopped taking photos by then, as time was getting on. I walked through New Cheriton and stopped by a stream which I found out this evening is one of the tributaries of the River Itchen (the sources rise around Hinton Ampner). The Itchen heads north before turning west, before turning south again, through Winchester and Southampton where it enters the Solent.

After refreshing my feet in the stream I tootled down the road to the Hinton Arms before finally heading back to the car and home before rush hour.

Overall it was a very pleasant walk, not too testing despite the heat, and one that could be enjoyed by anyone who likes a walk in picturesque, lowland countryside with no interest in military history. For me it obviously also had added interest and proved quite instructive. If you're in the area or able to get there, I highly recommend it. Maybe I should re-visit it myself in March to get a better feel.