Day 5 did not disappoint but it dawned rainy again and came with a compliment of showers and imposing storm clouds that thundered in the distance pretty much the whole time we walked. It also came with our first experience of the River Itchen and the flooded trails that we had been warned about before we started out in Reading and by river path walkers this day. We actually rerouted around the river as hikers, wet up to the top of their Wellingtons, kindly suggested we turn back. We made it to Winchester, however late it was, and spent the evening hours enjoying a rain-free walk around this beautiful Medieval town.
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| Another wet start |
Alresford did not want to let us leave as we found an interesting churchyard, an historic railroad, and met chatty neighbors out early the shops for fresh fish and produce. It was early in the misty rain but even so the town was bustling. The Camino Ingles joined the Pilgrims Way (Winchester to Canterbury), the Itchen Way, and St. Swithun's Way through the morning which gave the path a bustling feel as well. By this point in our walk I had lost all track of what day it was so I am guessing it was market day or a weekend? Anyway, it was very people-y.
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| The Pilgrims Way joins the Camino Ingles |
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| Alresford Station - The Watercress Line - and conductor Sue |
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| Watercress cultivation, water meadows, River Itchen |
When we left the town and began to follow the River Itchen, along its banks and through its ancient water meadows, our pilgrimage truly took on its riverine/watery theme as we navigated stream fordings, flooded paths, and pop-up storms. Now I really got sucked into my newfound love for chalk streams. Trout were everywhere on their clear water gravel beds. Watercress and submerged aquatic grasses swayed with the strong current. Sometimes we swayed, too, as we balanced on narrow paths with water rising inches from our feet on either side. One slip or stumble and one of us could have easily ended up in the river. I became preoccupied with my cousin's safety and began to catastrophize with any number of doom and gloom scenarios in my head!
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| One of several crossings today |
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| A beautiful chalk stream, River Itchen |
In any case, we did not go for a swim today but the river and the water meadows did their magic on me helping to wash away my distracting thoughts and reminding me how sacred the watery landscape would have been to our ancestors. Rivers were integral to pre-Christian Celtic worship and when overlapped with Christian belief and traditions, streams of all sizes, springs, fens, and marshes became holy places, givers of life, worthy of deep reverence. St. Swithun figured highly today - he's one of Molly's favorite saints - and while we were walking in the same landscapes that he once lived in, keeping him in mind today made our spiritual connections to this beautiful river even more powerful. River Itchen had me under its spell.
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| Narrow, flooded path |
We had to backtrack off the river at one exceptionally flooded section thanks to the warnings of a few walkers and one gentleman in particular who loved the idea of pilgrims walking through his favorite trail system but not mud-up-to-our-knees pilgrims. He was kind and concerned and gave us an alternative route on the road-bound St. Swithuns Way to reconnect with the river further downstream in Itchen Abbas, where we ducked into the church of St. John the Baptist just in time for the skies to open in downpour.
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| Detour off the river |
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| Over the hill |
We passed through wildflower fields and ancient woods, strolled along wet hedges and misty alleyways. We stopped at a pub and had delicious homemade pizza to warm us and revive our soggy spirits and to get our newest stamp to add to our pilgrim's passport. Medieval pilgrims would not have had these fun little cards to stamp along the way but they would have purchased little pilgrim badges stamped in tin or made with lead molds with the names of local churches and holy sites stamped into them. Some pilgrims collected the badges and wore them like our grandmothers and moms would have worn a charm bracelet. Some pilgrims, finding sacred waters on the way, would place their badges into rivers and bogs as offerings for safe journey. These are still found today in marshes and bogs all over the UK and France by metal detectorists and archeologists.
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| St. Swithun's Church, Martyr Worthy |
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| Saxon-Norman-Medieval beauty |
With the rain coming down again we stepped into the church of St. Swithun and delighted in its beautiful interior, found another stamp, and sat a few minutes to gather our thoughts. St. Swithun, a beloved Anglo-Saxon bishop of the church in Winchester (d. 863) was credited with many miracles during and after life, but his feast day of July 2 is best known as a weather-marker date in the cycle of seasons in south England, a kind of meteorological haunting. I love these little saint's tales and this one in particular for where we happened to be and what the weather was doing. Tucked inside the 1,000 year-old church drying off and warm as the rain poured down outside, we felt like part of the good saint's story.
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| Entrance to Winchester from the Windall Moors |
We entered the city along the River Itchen and found our lodgings in a faux-prison-themed hotel just on the outskirts of the city walls. It was a fun place! I loved my room and wanted nothing more than to take an extra long hot shower then pull on my sweat pants and hoodie to sink into the most comfortable bed under a most comforting comforter. But we wanted to see Winchester so badly that we gave ourselves a short break to freshen up then I went knocking on my cousin's door for our next adventure - to walk Winchester at night. What a beautiful twilight walk it was, full of bustle as the day had been, despite the rain.
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| Truly one of my favorite cathedrals - finally in-person! |
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| The Bishop's House |
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| Defensive walls of Winchester (Roman/Saxon/Norse) at Kingsgate |
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| The High Street |
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| Alfred the Great! |
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| Walk back along the river to our hotel |
We reconnoitered the old city and made plans to come back for a day after we'd finished our walk in Southampton. I'm really glad we previewed the city and so we had a good feel for its layout and access that when we returned we knew exactly where we needed to go. A very lovely city surrounded by rivers, water meadows, forest, and chalk downs.
Notes:
BBC dispels the St Swithun Day forecast. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48991574
Water meadow conservation includes keeping them operational as they may have been in the Middle Ages. I fell in love with the whole water meadow ecosystem that is part historical and part natural. I'm thinking the gentleman we met walking the flooded Itchen Way path may have been a local water meadow manager. He was so knowledgeable and a real conservationist. https://vitacress-conservation.org/stoke-mill-water-meadows/
We would walk River Itchen's Eastleigh Water Meadows further on, but this paper gives a good idea of the archeology, operations, and surviving uses of these fascinating places which on this day, Day 5, I really started to love despite being ankle deep in their workings.
https://www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk/publications/hampshirestudies/digital/2010s/Vol_66/Cook&Young.pdf
Thank you Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust for all the work they do. We walked through so many preserves I lost count! https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/
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