Graham Pearcey

The route:

• Park at The White Hart, The Green, Pirbright, GU24 0LP. Food is served until 3:00 PM and again from 6:00 PM Mon-Sat. Food is served all afternoon until 8:00 PM Sun and Bank Holidays.
• Cross the A324 to take the side road signposted Parish Church, and walk along this road for about 200m.
• Enter the graveyard on the right. See the granite lump marking the grave of Stanley and continue along the graveyard path, past the church’s south door and out to the footpath beyond it.
• Turn right and walk along the path between fields. Cross over a road and take the public footpath through the wood. Ignore a side path on the right towards a children’s playground, and soon reach a road junction. Cross Gole Road carefully. Take the left hand footpath under the railway arch and then immediately bear left to cross over the Basingstoke Canal at Pirbright Bridge. Do NOT take either towpath but continue along the pavement on the right-hand side of the road for another 100m.
• Just after the two driveways at the bend, turn right onto the footpaths. Immediately turn right again onto the narrow muddy path, which parallels the border fence with houses, and leads in a short distance through a pair of wooden gates into Sheet’s Heath. The path climbs a hill, merges with another path from the left, and reaches a narrow tarmac lane. Cross the lane to follow the wide track. Ignore the many side paths until, after about 500m, you clearly see telegraph poles in front of the boundary trees to your right.
• As the current track reaches its closest point to the telegraph poles, turn right onto a path that cuts through the heather to the poles. Pass through a kissing gate and turn right onto a wide track. At a junction after 60m go straight ahead onto a road that passes another telegraph pole (right) and Sheets Cottage (left). The road descends and then rises again to reach the canal. Bear left with the road and join the Basingstoke Canal towpath, popular with ducks. Pass under the cart bridge and keep ahead, passing locks 14 and 13 after 380m and subsequently reaching lock 12.
• At the far end of lock 12 turn right over the footbridge to descend under the A322 via slightly obscure steps, and continue along the towpath now with the canal on your left. After about 1km pass houses and then proceed under a road bridge (Hermitage Bridge). Continue along the towpath for a further 1.6km, pass under a footbridge and eventually reach the main road through St John’s village at Kiln Bridge.
• Turn right and immediately right again along the pavement. In 60m, at a junction, cross the road to proceed along the tarmac track opposite, with the park and playground to your right. Keep ahead into woods, and in 400m cross the footbridge over the railway. At the end of this footbridge immediately turn right over a stile and follow the path parallel to the railway.
• This path emerges onto the golf course but continues along the right hand edge until a signpost directs you to bear left across the golf course fairway on a slightly raised grassy path, passing a bunker and a strip of woodland on your left. Keep ahead to cross a small stone bridge on the second fairway and continue on the clearly marked path into woods, and subsequently across two more fairways and through the edge of another wood. At the end of the path, turn left down the driveway to the road. Turn right and proceed along the right hand edge of the road, keeping as far into the verge as nettles permit. Eventually, on reaching a road bridge, cross to a safe pavement to go under the railway arch, and 100m later cross back to the right hand side of the road. On reaching a pavement, keep right at the junction but then immediately turn right down to descend to the towpath. Retrace your steps to the cart bridge via Hermitage Bridge, the A322, the footbridge and the three locks. 50m before the cart bridge, bear right onto the road in order to cross the canal via the bridge. Proceed along Sheets Heath Lane before crossing the main road with care to take the access road beside the Brookwood Hotel and reach Brookwood Station.
• Using the main door, pass through the station tunnel to enter Brookwood Cemetery. Turn right onto Pine Avenue and pass (on your right) the graves of Cypriots, Turks, Turkish airmen, and Parsees. Just before the Zoroastrian Cemetery, at the triangular junction, bear left down the hill, and through a gate onto a tarmac drive. Take the next turning on the right, then turn left to pass through the Brookwood Memorial.
• Turn left onto Long Avenue and pass through another gate. Pass Western Avenue, Oak Avenue and Railway Avenue, before following the bend right to pass the Najmee-Baag (Muslim burial ground). Descend to the other end of Railway Avenue and emerge onto a main road.
• Cross into the other part of the cemetery and stay on the main tarmac drive (St Cyprian’s Avenue) to the fork at the Saint Edward Orthodox Church and Brotherhood. Fork right through the open gate onto St Chad’s Avenue that becomes St George’s Avenue as it passes the Serbian Orthodox Cemetery.
• Keep following St George’s Avenue clockwise. You’re circling back towards where you came from, but when you cross St Mark’s Avenue (the sign has its back to you), turn left.
• Go straight for 550m. After passing a newish (2005) grave with bird feeders on the tree next to it, the main path forks. Take the right fork through the trees to a crossing with a broader track, then bear slightly to the right to take a potentially muddy (but fortunately wide) path through trees to a barrier. Here turn right onto a byway and reach a tarmac lane.
• Double back left past houses. Take the track branching to the right - Whites Lane - and continue on the footpath to the next road.
• Go left along the road towards Whites Farm, but just before reaching it take the Public Footpath (look for the partially hidden sign) to the right over a stile. Bear left but diverge from the boundary of the field towards another stile 60m from the left corner (look for the yellow waymarker sign) and proceed over the bridge and straight along the path through the wood and subsequent plantation.
• At the very end of the path, turn left along the track which becomes a tarmac drive and passes Cricketers Cottage to reach a road. Turn left. Pass The Cricketers and Pirbright & District Social Club on your left, to return to the White Hart pub.

This route was last walked on 19 April 2010, and the directions were accurate then. Please e-mail me if you find any errors, if you would like a copy in Word format, or if you would prefer a version that starts and ends at Brookwood station.

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