Odiham, Broad Oak and Dogmersfield Park
This walk is kindly reproduced from “Rambles on the Basingstoke Canal” by Malcolm Brickwood and Roger Cansdale. Within the book there are details of the history surrounding this walk and it can be purchased from our online shop.
Distance: 4.75 miles (7.6km)
Time to Walk: Allow 2h 20m
OS Maps: Explorer 144 (1:25,000) or Landranger 186 (1:50,000)
Start: Colt Hill Car Park at Odiham Wharf, Odiham RG29 1DH (Grid Ref: SU748516)
Parking: Colt Hill at Odiham Wharf
Public Transport: Bus
Refreshments: The Waterwitch Public House, Colt Hill Odiham
- From the far end of the CP follow a path through to the canal and turn L (East) to join the towpath and go E for 770m to pass under both the A287 and Broad Oak Bridges. In 230m after Broad Oak bridge, on your L is Wilks Water, once a Carp breeding pond for Dogmersfield Lake, with estate cottages behind and the site of an old mill. Also in the woods behind the pond is the original estate hunting lodge, now owned by the National Trust (not open to the public). This can be viewed by taking the small path on the L for about 200m and then returning to the towpath.
- Continue ahead for 1.25km along a deep cutting to Sandy Hill Bridge, where we leave the canal towpath by going up the sloping path on the left before the bridge, the R over the bridge (N-S). Then turn L along FP (along the opposite bank) to continue E at a higher level for a short distance to join BW that comes in from the L over Sprat’s Hatch Bridge.
- Bear R here away from the bridge on your L to go SE between paddocks to a house on a L bend at Sprat’s Hatch Farm to join a road. Here go R through a kissing gate on a fenced FP that goes ESE to reach a driveway. Continue on this driveway to the furthest point E where you turn acutely R by a finger post on another fenced FP that goes SW over a driveway by a metal gate, passing an elevated lookout point making for a large electricity pylon on the skyline ahead. The track continues SW for a further 1.5km through a kissing gate and past Dogmersfield Lake on your right to reach the main road (A287).
- Turn L for 60m then cross over road to a drive to “Lothams Pennycum”. The FP starts just by the road on the L of the driveway through trees, keep going on the path through the trees until you come to a small wooden bridge and a kissing gate on the R into a field and keep by fence until you come to a second kissing gate. once out of this field go R following footpath until you come to a field (can be very muddy). Continue W by the hedge-side on the L to the end to cross over a FBr and stile on the L, ignoring the stile on the L immediately before. Go forward R to diagonal corner of field, then keep to the R over planks and by hedgerows for 230m to kissing gate on your R.
- Follow path up slope by a tree belt to reach the main road via a kissing gate. Carefully cross over the road and through a kissing gate to continue N on FP past rear gardens and through kissing gate to road ahead, where we turn R over the canal bridge and back to CP.
You can download a PDF version of this walk here – Odiham Circular