Corhampton

A Saxon Church at the Crossroads

The sundial scratched into the south wall of Corhampton's church has five tide marks and two clear crosses, cut into a church that dates from about 1020. The church has no dedication — it is listed simply as a parish church of no dedication — and is an almost complete two-cell Saxon building: long-and-short quoins at the corners, pilaster strips up the walls, the original chancel arch still standing. Inside there is a font from around 1200, a stone seat built into the chancel in the 13th century, wall paintings of St Swithun now faded almost to guesswork, a Jacobean roof and pulpit, and a Victorian west gallery. In 1855 the east end collapsed following road works; it was rebuilt, and Sir Thomas Jackson restored the church again in 1905.

The church sits at a crossroads where the A32 runs along the valley floor. Around it stand 18th- and 19th-century cottages, some thatched, the valley sides rising sharply on either side and a wooded railway embankment closing the eastern edge. The traffic on the A32 is the one intrusion the setting cannot hide.

Village Provisions and Riverside Pizza

For a village this small, the food is unusually good, though the two pubs worth naming sit in nearby Meonstoke and Exton. On Warnford Road, the Meonstoke Post Office and Village Stores uses blue-dot labels for locally produced, grown or made goods: artisan breads, croissants and pastries, local poultry, ChalkStream trout, Grover meats, and build-your-own hampers.

In nearby Meonstoke, the Bucks Head cooks pizza in a Valoriani oven — 48-hour sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes, toppings that have run to wild mushroom with truffle béchamel and five-spice duck with hoisin and spring onion. Dogs are welcome, there is a garden by the water, and five en-suite rooms upstairs for anyone who wants to make an evening of it.

The Shoe and the Valley Trails

The Shoe, at Exton, sits directly on a national trail and is a food-led country pub with open log fires in colder months and a riverside garden looking across the valley. The sample menu has included slow-roasted belly pork with gratin dauphinois and cider jus, beer-battered haddock with minted mushy peas, and chickpea-and-coriander falafel with kale and chimichurri. It won Wadworth's Food Pub of the Year in 2014, selected from 217 tenanted pubs. Customers liked the chutney enough to take jars home, inspiring the sister business, the Hampshire Pantry.

The walking is the reason to stay. The Meon Valley Trail follows eleven miles of the old Fareham-to-Alton railway past the village, with a mostly flat gradient and a route shared with cyclists and riders, linking the South Downs Way to the Wayfarers Walk. The Meon itself is a chalk stream, filtered clear, running twenty-one miles to the Solent; it holds wild trout, and a patient walker might catch a kingfisher. Old Winchester Hill, a national nature reserve on the down above, is also a designated dark-sky site.

Getting Here Without a Car

A car helps. The Wednesday bus to Petersfield leaves from Corhampton De Port Heights; the Friday bus to Winchester stops at Corhampton De Port Heights on Warnford Road, not outside the village shop. There are no Sunday or bank-holiday services. Botley, the nearest station, is a drive away.

Summer Ice Cream with a View

On warm-weather weekends, the Exton pub's garden ice-cream shack serves house-made ice cream with a view across the valley.