Sheet

The green, the river and a village inn

The horse chestnut on the green was planted in 1899 for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, after the original commemorative tree of 1897 was vandalised. It stands at the centre of Sheet, a small village on the northern edge of Petersfield, gathered around its green with the River Rother running past the far edge and the South Downs rising beyond the Common. You are inside the South Downs National Park here, a mile or so from a mainline station, and the lanes stay narrow and quiet despite the A3 and A272 close at hand.

There are two pubs, and the parish council will tell you both have gardens. The Queen's Head sits on Village Street and looks the part of an old English inn. The kitchen leans on warm ciabatta filled with bacon and melted cheese, goat's cheese with roasted pepper and rocket, or Parma ham with pecorino and watercress, alongside a 6oz sirloin steak served with a watercress-and-pecorino salad, a chicken-and-bacon Caesar focaccia wrap, and takeaway sourdough pizzas. The bar has run Flower Pots Bitter, Bowman Sarva, Dartmoor Jail Ale and Wye Valley HPA, with Bee Sting perry for anyone off the beer. The landlord, Jonathan Berry, helped make a charity ale called Walker's Walk for the 2023 Jon Walker Memorial Walk, in memory of a local journalist and rugby supporter. "We knew Jon fairly well from the rugby club and both his boys worked here," he said, "so we're happy to get involved with this."

The Half Moon and practical provisions

The Half Moon, on London Road, is a family-owned free house run by Colin and Paul Baker, a father and son who took the lease in 2010 and bought the freehold outright in 2025. It has a historic bar, a bright conservatory dining room and four en-suite rooms if you want to stay on the spot. Colin's Pie of the Day is made on site; other regulars on the menu include a slow-cooked venison stew with red wine and thyme, raspberry-and-white-chocolate cheesecake, and a gluten-free warm date sponge with caramel sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream. For a proper shop you go into Petersfield, which supplies what the village does not.

Road, river and the two mills

Sheet grew at a crossing of the Rother on the old Portsmouth–London road. A toll trust began improving that road in 1711, and its gate and toll house stood until 1931, when the road was widened; Nelson and Wellington both passed through. Two water mills once worked here, a fulling mill that scoured grease from wool and a mill grinding flour and animal feed. Both are private houses now, and both feature on Petersfield Museum's self-guided Two Mills walk, a 3.5-mile loop along the Rother that also takes in the old railway embankment and Village Street, once nicknamed Soapsuds Alley for the wash water that ran down its open gully until mains drainage arrived in the 1930s.

A Gothic Revival landmark

The church of St Mary Magdalene, built in 1868–69 to designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, carries a shingled octagonal broach spire and capitals carved with lilies and passion flowers. Bishop Charles Sumner paid for the tower and steeple in thanks for recovering from illness.

A field beside the Rother

For a shorter outing there is the Millennium Field, five hectares sloping to the wooded river, where residents planted native trees in 2000 and a survey later found more than seventy species. The dog walkers get there first most mornings.