Pilot Hill and Walbury Hill

County - Hampshire and Berkshire

Elevation – 286m and 297m respectively

Date – 07/07/2021

Distance – 11km

Elevation climbed - 213m

With the twin burdens of Covid and work out of the way for the summer, it was time to crack back onto the County Tops challenge. Scouting around for Tops I could do in a day from home, I settled on the idea of smashing two in one and nipped down the M3 in the general direction of Newbury, eventually sticking the car in the delightful village of East End, where unfortunately there wasn't a pub called the Queen Vic (or indeed any pub at all).

Full of renewed enthusiasm for the project, I hared off up the track known as Brenda Parker Way, wondering who on earth Brenda Parker was and what she'd done to get a large footpath named after her. Long distance paths are generally named after the places they cross (Pembrokeshire Coast, Pennine Way), key features (Three Castles Way) or significant historical figures (General Wade's Military Road etc), not someone who sounds like she played darts with my mum in the 80s.

Anyway, my ruminations about Brenda Parker came to a close when I looked up and saw the great chalk escarpment ahead of me, atop which both our peaks sat. I remembered that the problem with County Topping is that you have to climb actual hills from time to time, and it won't always be easy.

Thankfully someone had put steps in through the woodland, which made life an awful lot easier.

Coming up through the woods, heart rate going, I emerged into an upland meadow, with knee high grasses blown by the wind and an absolute ton of butterflies. Feeling all at one with nature, I traversed this to the top, only to find someone had whacked up an electric fence and removed the stile:

I was slightly worried about the proximity of my gonads to the live wires, but thankfully despite my advancing years I can still summon the memory of my career as a junior high jump champ, so managed to vault the volts without too much peril. And I was thankful I did, as I was then able to turn around and take in the breathtaking view of the Thames Valley beyond, which I then singularly failed to capture adequately on camera:

At the top of the ridge I picked up the Wayfarer's Walk (whether Brenda Parker was a Wayfarer I couldn't say) which would be the main thoroughfare for the walk and would, if I followed it south, take me all the way to the coast at Emsworth. I walked for a few hundred yards looking for the trig point, only to realise it wasn't on the path but 200m to the right. In the winter this wouldn't be an issue, but at the height of summer the route to the trig point was blocked by shoulder-high vegetation:

Trig point is just over that ridge...

I didn't really have any choice but to batter my way through the weeds. After a few yards I started getting dive bombed by angry Skylark parents, meaning I to watch every step for ground-nested chicks, which didn't help with the speed of progress. Eventually I came through the last of the Triffids and there it was, the first County Top of the year:

Boom! First Top of the year - Pilot Hill

Pilot Hill is the County Top of Hampshire, but, fact fans, it has only held that title since 1895 when the boundaries were shifted; prior to that it was in Berkshire. The completest in me wanted to get both the old and new County Tops of Hampshire and as luck would have it the next stop would do just that.

After fighting back to the Wayfarer's Way, I walked for a mile or two along the chalk path atop the ridge, enjoying the peace and solitude. Eventually I came to a road, and, erm, a car park, where I realised I could have shaved around 9k off my walk had I just parked there. But where's the fun in that, huh?

From the car park I climbed again towards the summit of Walbury Hill, now back in Berkshire (even though it used to be Hampshire...). As I reached the top the weather suddenly closed in, reminding me I was atop the highest point in SE England, with howling wind and rain spattering my face. Just to rub things in I found there was a whacking great gate in between me and the trig point, with a "PRIVATE NO ACCESS" sign on it.

I'm not one for lawbreaking and I do consider myself respectful of private property, so you'll just have to read the below as fiction.

"Oh honestly, it's two minutes away and I will do no harm" I thought, hopping the gate. I sprinted through the field, reached the trig point, took a quick pic, and legged it back.

This is what the trig point would look like if I'd been to it. Which I definitely didn't. Oh no.

Definitely not disappointed, I looked to my west to see the next hill, Coombe Gibbet. As you may know, a gibbet is a structure for hanging felons, and I was a bit surprised to see the Gibbet still in situ - although it's actually the seventh gibbet to be on this site, as unsurprisingly the previous six wooden structures rotted away since the first people were hung there in 1676 (George Broomham and Dorothy Newman, who'd murdered George's wife and son so their affair could be legitimised...). I know we were in the wilds out here but I wasn't quite expecting to thrust into the Dark Ages.

Slightly perturbed, I headed back to the car park, found a delightful path through a sheep field, ate my sandwiches in the resurgent sunshine, noted the Iron Age hillfort on the hillside (see below), and then happily trotted back to the car through the quintessentially English country lanes of West Berkshire.

Walbury Hill hillfort earthworks, Iron Age. Back in the day these would have been a system of ditches and palisades to protect the residents from any angry invaders. Not sure how they'd have coped with a legion of well-organised Romans, mind you.