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 it belongs to has no dedication — it is listed simply as a parish church of no dedication — and is among the most complete two-cell Saxon buildings in the country: 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 after road works outside disturbed the ground; 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.
For a village this small the food is better than it has any right to be, though the two pubs worth naming sit in nearby Meonstoke and Exton. On Warnford Road, the Meonstoke Post Office and Village Stores marks its local produce with a blue dot: artisan breads, croissants and pastries, local poultry, ChalkStream trout, Grover meats, and hampers you build yourself.
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, at Exton, sits directly on the South Downs Way and calls itself "a friendly welcome on the South Down's Way." It is the more ambitious kitchen of the two, with a menu that has run to 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. There are log fires in the cold months and a riverside garden looking across to Old Winchester Hill. It took Wadworth's Food Pub of the Year in 2014, chosen from 217 tenanted pubs, and its chutney proved popular enough that customers asked to take jars home — which is how the sister business, the Hampshire Pantry, began.
The walking is the reason to stay. The Meon Valley Trail follows eleven miles of the old Fareham-to-Alton railway past the village, level and 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.
A car helps. The Wednesday bus to Petersfield leaves from Corhampton De Port Heights; the Friday bus to Winchester stops outside the village shop. There is nothing at all on Sundays or bank holidays. Botley, the nearest station, is a drive away.
In summer the Shoe puts an ice-cream shack out in its garden, house-made, in view of Old Winchester Hill. It is the kind of thing worth planning a walk around.