Common

January

Stage 3, Liss to Liphook.

Behind the station at Liss, an old railway bed makes a shady pathway. The sun is warm on the tree tops and the birds are chattering about spring.

But as the path follows the Mint stream winter persists where water has frozen into ice on the road, a caution for walkers and birds that spring is still only a wish.

Under a clear sky, across a bright field and over the railway foot crossing where warning signs attempt to put fear in to the nervous walker. As I cross I stop for a moment to look down the tracks, my link to walking start and finish. The corridor of peril is quiet.

The route is too urban and the surfaces too sealed for real country enjoyment but I cross from Hampshire to Sussex and find the open space of Chapel Common. Sandy heath land, underrated until recently. A home for rare plants and insects, including the intriguingly named red data book solitary bee. Packs of domestic dogs shake off their confinement revelling in sandy spaces between gorse and birch and heather. A Roman road underfoot marches from Chichester to Silchester.

A common was once a shared space, although most are now owned and divided, fenced and forbidden, but here is a reckless expanse. There is sun and air, dogs and walkers are welcomed. Unlike the many footpaths that skulk along fencelines bristling with warning signs, tracking through mud and water, with no sense of the walker as owner of these Rights of Way but instead as a potential vagabond liable to trespass and destruction.

Under the railway this time and then yomping through mud and ice and water I find my way at last to the permissive footpath around a golf course. This narrow corridor under the trees is pleasant enough for subservient walkers who are reminded of their benefactors playing golf on the superphosphate-green grass. This ground is manicured, managed and monetised. Not a space for us edge-dwellers, not for the commoners.

And there is an ancient burial mound, sculptured into the greens. The King sleeps under the hill. Will he play golf when he awakes or ride to reclaim the land?

The book for this walk is On Gallows Down by Nicola Chester, the story of reclaiming Greenham Common.

You can follow this walk: http://www.lissparishcouncil.gov.uk/_UserFiles/Files/Walks/Liss%20walk%203%20web.pdf