Start \u2013 Dummer, End \u2013 Alresford, Distance \u2013 14 miles, Difficulty \u2013 moderate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All smiles at the start of the leg from Dummer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
From the quiet village of Dummer we followed farm tracks south over Tilley Hill and across Becket\u2019s Down. The photographs show skeletal trees still not in leaf and hedgerows just beginning to \u2018green\u2019 up – quite different from the landscape on previous journeys. Along one of the pathways, we found a swing and cat. I don\u2019t think that the two were linked but they were both a bit of entertainment! And still no other walkers.<\/p>\n\n\n
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A brief respite from walking!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
We arrived in the village of Brown Candover where we found the sign showing how far we\u2019d walked and how far was left \u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n
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The Littlest in Brown Candover<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
From the village we followed ancient paths gently uphill before stopping for a late lunch just past some large farm buildings. Revived, the walk continued through farmland and woodland passing through the hamlet of Abbotstone where we crossed the Candover Stream and walked to Itchen Stoke Down where the Wayfarers Way intersects other ancient trails.<\/p>\n\n\n
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Crossing the Candover Stream<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
We followed the River Arle into Alresford passing the famous watercress beds, Eel House and Fulling Mill. <\/p>\n\n\n
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The Eel House on the River Arle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
The Eel House<\/a> sits across the crystal clear waters of the River Arle and dates back to the 1820s. It was commissioned by the local Harris family to trap mature eels at the start of their once in a lifetime 3000 mile journey across the Atlantic to return to their spawning grounds to breed in the Sargasso Sea of the Caribbean. For more than 160 years (the Eel House was last used in the 1980s) on a handful of autumnal nights, the river keeper would open the sluices, set the traps and manoeuvre his catch. Once his \u2018eel box\u2019 was full he would take it to his keeper\u2019s cottage to sell to merchants who would take the eels to fish markets to be sold live. The journey of the eel is absolutely astonishing and we have been incredibly fortunate to see eels on a handful of occasions in the River Anton in Andover and closer to home in Pillhill Brook in Abbotts Ann – both are tributaries of the River Test. The European eel is critically endangered and at risk of extinction. I believe that the Eel House in Alresford is the only one left in the UK. It has several Open Days during the year with free entry (donations are obviously very much welcomed and on the basis that it really is quite a unique part of British history, its upkeep is critical).<\/p>\n\n\n
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Memorial to Hambone Jr<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Further along the footpath, there\u2019s also a stone memorial to a terrier called Hambone Jr, who lived in a WWII US army camp having been adopted by the 9th Division of the 47th Infantry who were based in Alresford while preparing for the Normandy invasions. As the soldiers prepared for the invasion, Hambone was accidentally run over. The men were mortified and they buried him with a wooden cross close to the River. In 1962 the local community replaced the cross with the memorial stone. Flowers are regularly left every Rememberence Day. We love discovering these stories.<\/p>\n\n\n
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The River Arle, Alresford<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe river itself was full of wildlife, including a brood of very cute ducklings! And we came across \u2018 Amy\u2019s Duck Food Table<\/a>\u2019 set up by local residents Amy and her father – Amy has complex learning difficulties, uncontrolled epilepsy and scoliosis – and organising the duck table has given her a purpose as well as ensuring the local water birds are offered healthy food. Definitely worth supporting.<\/p>\n\n\n
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Fulling Mill on the River Arle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
A little further on we came to the Fulling Mill – an iconic 13th Century thatched, timber building, now a private home, spanning the River Arle. Fulling is the process of washing, cleaning, beating and thickening cloth, tightening and shrinking it to produce a closely woven product. Originally done in shallow streams by human feet using fuller\u2019s earth (a type of clay); water mills built for this purpose were known as fulling mills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alresford itself is a gorgeous market town known to us for its Watercress Line<\/a> station where old steam trains are run, especially in December when Father Christmas appears on certain trains and it\u2019s also a location of the much loved Thomas the Tank Engine – heady days! End of leg 3.<\/p>\n\n\n
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The Eldest and the Boy with Thomas the Tank Engine (about a million years ago!)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Start \u2013 Dummer, End \u2013 Alresford, Distance \u2013 14 miles, Difficulty \u2013 moderate https:\/\/www.hants.gov.uk\/thingstodo\/countryside\/walking\/wayfarerswalk-dummer Written almost a year ago; who would have known that the state of the world would be even worse (yes, even more chaotic mess) and that more unbelievably dangerous words would be coming out of a certain individual\u2019s mouth. Although given…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Leg 3 of the Wayfarers Walk","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[197,307,293,433,343,393,76,442],"tags":[264,345,300,430,396,372,443],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-life","category-family-walks","category-good-things","category-long-distance-walks","category-simple-things","category-surviving-lockdown","category-uk-days-out","category-wayfarers-walk","tag-family-life-2","tag-family-walks","tag-good-things","tag-long-distance-walk","tag-surviving-lockdown","tag-the-simple-things","tag-wayfarers-walk","wpcat-197-id","wpcat-307-id","wpcat-293-id","wpcat-433-id","wpcat-343-id","wpcat-393-id","wpcat-76-id","wpcat-442-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/FullSizeRender-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4llmx-EE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}