The River Itchen is a beautiful and classic chalk stream, rising north of Alresford and flowing through water meadows to Winchester and south to Eastleigh before discharging into Southampton Water. The whole river was confirmed an SSSI in 1997.

The first stretch of this walk is along the Itchen Navigation, a 10 mile long canal system that provided an important trading route from Winchester to the sea. Opened in 1710, it had fallen into disuse by 1869, but in that time it provided an important method of moving goods, particularly agricultural produce and coal, between the two cities and the intervening villages.

The London and Southampton Railway, the line that may have brought you here, was opened between Winchester and Southampton in 1839, and took the canal's business away. Shawford station itself was opened to traffic on 1st September 1882.

Shawford - or shallow ford - was where the future Charles II crossed the river after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. For six weeks, hotly pursued by the Parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell, he travelled first north, then south through the Cotswolds and the Mendips to the South Coast, and finally along the South Downs to Shoreham where he made his escape to France. This route is now perpetuated as the Monarch's Way.

England - Hampshire - Countryside

View a road map to the starting point of this walk.