Words: Mark Rowe  

We keep hearing that Britain is overpopulated, with the music of its countryside muffled by trunk roads and its big skies crowded out by suburban sprawl. But as I sit on a tree stump 5km/ 3 miles south of Winchester, watching the River Itchen flow past, I wonder: if that’s the case, then why have I spent the past few days enjoying silence and birdsong, walking blissfully through woods and open countryside in one of the most densely developed parts of the South East?  

I’m walking the St James’ Way, a 110km/68-mile pilgrim route from Reading in Berkshire to Southampton on the Hampshire coast. Admittedly, I’d been slightly sceptical upon arrival in Reading. This Thames Valley town screams commuting and shopping. So it was refreshing, as I stood before the ruins of a medieval abbey, tucked away above the River Kennet, to experience the sensation of preconceptions being dismantled.  

 

Heading from Reading 

Reading is the obvious starting point for the St James’ Way: in medieval times its abbey enjoyed a stature reflecting its locality, straddling two rivers – the Thames and Kennet – and close to the palaces of Woodstock, Windsor and London. Around the 12th century, enterprising clergy announced that the abbey possessed a hand of St James, whose body lay in an eponymous basilica in Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Carbon dating has subsequently shown the hand was too young (and also female), but the icon served its purpose at the time, drawing thousands of pilgrims to venerate the hand and make their own pilgrimage, via Southampton, to Spain. The Camino Inglés was born, joining its counterparts in Europe to ultimately converge on Galicia.  

Today’s pilgrims can pick up a pilgrim card at the museum, which can be stamped at churches (and some pubs) along the way. Waymarked in 2020-21 with the emblem of St James – a scallop shell (reliable, though you’ll sometimes find them at hip or even ankle level) – the route leads out of Reading past the wharf where Henry I was brought back for burial in 1135. After a surreal traverse of The Oracle shopping centre, it tips me out onto the banks of the Kennet. I pass houseboats while traffic jams and housing become fleeting and the route sheds its urban skin.  

The variety of the walk and the ways in which it keeps busy roads mainly at arm’s length are impressive. Circumnavigating Hosehill Lake Nature Reserve just south of the M4, I spot great-crested grebes before navigating country lanes and undulating downland. In the late 1990s, a plan was drawn up to smother the area between Reading and Basingstoke with new towns – a concept dubbed ‘Readingstoke’. A protest campaign, describing the land as ‘good old English countryside’, won out.  

 

Woodland and wildlife 

Dropping down through vast fields of wheat to a woodland, I pause in the shade for a drink. Catching movement out of the corner of my eye, I turn to see a roe deer yards away. It bounces away, then a few minutes later a muntjac deer leaps across my path. Through a gap in coppicing, I track a bounding hare bisecting a field.  

The woodland edges turn into the boundary of the churchyard of St Mary’s in the village of Sulhamstead Abbots, where I’m greeted by the Reverend Anthony Peabody. Like all pilgrims who visit the church, I’m invited to ring the bell. My efforts are, frankly, remedial, but he’s gracious. I wonder if this random clanging ever irks the villagers but the reverend, while stamping my pilgrim card, assures me the reverberations only carry a couple of hundred yards. A chat reveals he’s a retired forensic scientist and he wishes me a safe journey and the love of friends.  

 

Spiritual connection

  

The route of the camino, I’m realising, isn’t random. Rarely do I walk for more than two hours without passing a church – many handsomely decorated in knapped flint and featuring stained-glass windows – or a pub (I counted 13 within five minutes’ walk of the route). Many sections follow long-established ancient highways. Paths take me past Silchester – an Iron Age tribal centre that became the important Roman town of Calleva – where the substantial walls of an amphitheatre that could have seated 7,000 people survive. Later, the path picks up the Ox Drove, an age-old track that runs through long stretches of countryside with little or no sign of human habitation.  

Only belatedly do I realise that I’ve passed over the highest point (184m/604ft) and the last climb of even modest note along the gentle landforms of this route. Perhaps the sense of being on a pilgrim route is kicking my imagination into overdrive, but I find it easy to picture the whittled shadows of devoted souls in leather footwear sharing these lanes with carts and cattle, and the ghosts of medieval scythe-carrying labourers.  

It turns out I’m not alone. For a few miles I walk with Peter Dunn, who runs a baggage-transporting company along the route. ‘There is just something about a pilgrim route,’ he says. ‘I’m not religious, but it touches you in a way that other walks don’t. I don’t feel I’m walking from Silchester to Southampton, but to Santigo de Compostela.’  

After the consistently dismal news about the state of Britain’s rivers, the descent to Alresford lifts my spirits: here, at least, the River Alre is aquarium-clear. This is chalk-stream country and the chalk-filtered rivulets coalesce to form fast-flowing streams of clean water. They’re ideal for cultivating watercress, and beds of the peppery green garnish are everywhere.  

 

Welcome to Winchester 

From Alresford, the route plots the St Swithun’s Way to Winchester, England’s capital under the Saxons. One of the most absurdly scenic sections winds around the hamlet of Ovington between a network of watery capillaries overhung with pleaching sycamores. Wooden bridges offer the chance to drink in some set-piece countryside in a lambent light, while beneath me the green manes of water crowfoot get gently tugged downstream. In front of Winchester Cathedral I spot an encouraging waymarker that informs me, with a cheerful ¡Buen Camino!, that it’s just 25km/15½ miles to Southampton.  

South of Winchester stands the striking Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty. Although it looks like a mighty Benedictine monastery, this Christian foundation is managed by a community of ‘brothers’ who don’t belong to a religious order. Instead, they adhere to its original 12th-century ethos that housed and fed those too poor or frail to work in the fields. Today, pilgrims are welcome to attend matins and receive the Wayfarer’s Dole of a portion of bread and beer.  

The last day of the walk, from Winchester to Southampton, might be the longest, but it proves easy-going with a steady, almost imperceptible descent of just 38m/125ft to sea level. The River Itchen is an almost-constant companion on this section, with a navigation stream on the other side of the path. I’m perhaps 10cm above the water, creating the impression of walking along a causeway.  

 

So many pubs!  

I track the time of day by the people I encounter. In the early morning it’s runners, then dog walkers. By mid-morning the anglers are in position, followed by the first fellow ramblers headed the other way.  

I meet a man with a hacksaw. In a curious coincidence, this turns out to be David Sinclair, who has been heavily involved in planning and waymarking the route. He’s out for the day, hacking back overgrown sections. We remark on the difference between this British camino and its continental counterparts, where empty stretches offer boundless opportunities for contemplating the meaning of life. David points out how, in contrast ‘this route is jam-packed, there is so much interest, every hour there’s something different’. Then he adds: ‘And there are so many pubs along the route – you don’t have that in Europe.’  

 

Saints and pilgrims  

I wondered if the last couple of miles through suburban and urban Southampton would be an anticlimax. But far from melting away, the Itchen’s charms hold strong, winding through country parks and growing in breadth. Mindful that I’m following in the footsteps of those who tramped through in less secular times, I pass a focal point of more contemporary religious fervour: the home of ‘The Saints’ (Southampton football club). In an urban park, a fête offers candyfloss and ice cream, and I imagine its medieval version selling fingers of St James in packets of five.  

Journey’s end is God’s House Tower – a survivor of medieval Southampton that’s now a community arts and culture hub, where staff will cheerfully complete the stamps on your pilgrim card. At one time, pilgrims reaching this point would have looked nervously at the sea and wondered how their rickety tubs might survive the Bay of Biscay. Today, the view is framed by ocean liners so vast they seem to leapfrog one another as I walk along the quay, mingling with those headed to the Med for a spot of sun-worshipping.  
 

 

Walk it!

Distance: 110km/68½ miles  l  Time: five to seven days.  

Accommodation: There are plenty of places to stay along the route, including the Swan in Alresford (01962 732302, swanhotelalresford. com) and the Winchester Royal in Winchester (0330 102 7242, winchesterroyalhotel.com). Self-guided walking packages, accommodation and baggage transportation can be arranged through Walking the Camino (0118 466 4007, walkingthecamino.co.uk).  

Information: Visit the Confraternity of St James at www.csj.org.uk/st-james-way – click on ‘latest route news’ to check for diversions or flooding, or click the ‘St James Way CSJ guidebook’ link to buy the excellent book and accompanying bespoke A-to-Z map, plus the pilgrim card for stamping at churches and pubs.