This section was all, bar the last mile, on the Blackwater Valley Path. This is the path which made the whole Surrey Border Walk practical: until it was laid down and waymarked, there was a giant gap that would have taken some complex working out, so I am grateful for it.
Please donate for the Stroke Association to keep me going.
The River Blackwater rises in a muddy pool in Rowhill Copse, and I had followed the infant river from its source as the previous afternoon darkened to evening. Starting again in the morning, after a hearty breakfast, I found the river again marking the boundary of Badshot Lea in Surrey with with Aldershot in Hampshire. I assured a lady who enquired of my quest at that point that I was walking from Aldershot to Sandhurst; as I was.
The Blackwater Valley Path is marked here on the Hampshire side – but actually there is a path on the south side of the stream, the Surrey side, and the latter is the nicer walk, so I followed that. It does not go for ‘accessibility’ like the official path – it is the less used way and left to be a foot-friendly, narrow path through the heathland.
There is no hiding the fact that this is not Surrey’s, nor Hampshire’s, most picturesque tract. Hemming the valley in on either side are large towns, industry, and an unforgiving trunk road: the A331, a motorway in all but name, was to be my unwelcome companion all day. The path does its best to keep in a strip of woodland beside the ever-growing stream, and pretty it is, but every so often it burped me out onto a concrete forecourt or to a loud section beside the A-road. That is unavoidable, but the path does the best it can.
The path is well waymarked. It skips back and forth across the river, always following it downstream. The Aldershot / Farnborough suburbs pass in turn, roads and railway cross over – sometimes the path passes under without comment and in a few places it emerges and crosses a road. Between Ash, Surrey and the north edge of Aldershot the Basingstoke Canal crosses over, and the path climbs up, along its viaduct and down the other side. This is an area of lakes – gravel workings, I would assume – now filled with nature, gnats and anglers.
This has been a rather discontinuous narrative. There are few distinctive places – it was a question of bashing on with eyes open, with no open vistas under the trees, or those of no great note out of them, but I had been spoilt by the soft, green of the rural landscapes: for those who live in the towns, hard-working and industrious as they may be, this is a green lung that they need and that can provide good walking. I have nothing but admiration for the work of the Blackwater Valley Countryside Trust who created and who maintain this path.
At Frimley I went through a modern industrial estate that overspreads both counties; then the M3 crashed by overhead, and I was in open meadows, stretching all the way from here to York Town. A last woodland section, and I had reached the point where Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire meet; more prosaically, at the A30. I had finished the Surrey-Hampshire border.
From there, a walk up the road, past the grand gates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (which immediately affected my walking – back straight, eyes front, the way they taught you), to Camberley, and an end to the day.
I will resume along Surrey’s border with Berkshire. In the meantime, please donate for the Stroke Association.