News

** Walkers are Welcome – LAUNCH BUS WALK 4 **  

Whitchurch Walkers are Welcome are delighted to announce an addition to their popular set of bus walks, with the launch of Bus Walk 4, a 5 mile walk connecting Overton and Whitchurch via The Harroway.  

The Harroway, or ‘Old Way’ in Old English, is an ancient (chalk) trackway thought to be at least 5,000 years old and crosses the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just to the north of Overton and Whitchurch. From the early Middle Ages through to the 19th century, the pathway served as a drove road to the prosperous market town of Andover and the famous Weyhill Fair; from here the path continued over the open expanse of Salisbury Plain and onto Stonehenge and ultimately the Devon coast.  

Sections of the original ‘Old’ road have been lost under modern development, with the path nowadays remembered in modern street names and even in the name of local schools, but Overton and Whitchurch are fortunate to have a long stretch of the original path still intact where you can still literally walk in the footsteps of our ancestors.  

The walk can be downloaded here: https://whitchurch.org.uk/…/Bus-Walk-4-Overton-to…

Whitchurch Winter Festival 18th – 21st Dec – TICKETS NOW ON SALE Thanks to some generous funding from Arts Council England, we have a fantastic line-up of high-quality activities for (mainly) primary school age children and some for-pre-school children. Each individual child ticket is £15 and this includes a total of 9 activities. Each child festival ticket includes: –         6x arts and crafts activities –         1 pantomime performance –         1 music-making session –         1 dance/activity session As before, with the summer outdoors festival, we are allocating 25% of all tickets for free to local families facing financial hardship, and we thank Whitchurch Primary School for distributing our letter to parents. Whitchurch Winter Festival will be held at 3 sites in Whitchurch over 4 days: Saturday 18th, Sunday 19th, Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st December, from 10am to 3:30pm each day. The 3 sites are: Gill Nethercott Centre (arts and crafts sessions), Parish Hall (music-making sessions and pantomime) and Testbourne Dance Studio (dance/activity sessions) We have a really fantastic number of activities lined up including pantomime, Japanese taiko drums, Indonesian Gamelan orchestra, face painting, printing, origami, metal decoration making, weaving and lantern-making. Dance activities include street dance and Indian dance as well as mindfulness. As this is an indoors festival, we have really scaled back on ticket numbers. This means we will be focusing on promoting the event to local Whitchurch families for the first week, before releasing on to a wider audience. So that we can manage the flow of traffic, reduce the risk of crowding and guarantee sessions for our attendees, we are asking for all sessions to be pre-booked. Sessions can be booked on any of the four days. Booking Process: This is a two-step system. Firstly; purchase a £15 ticket for each child. Second; once payment has been received, you will receive an email listing activities available and links to book the 9 sessions. FREE TICKETS: Some parents at Whitchurch Primary School will already have received a letter regarding a free ticket and we look forward to hearing from you on email Finally, if you can spare it, we would really appreciate a small donation to help towards our running costs. We are a volunteer group, funded entirely by our own funds and grants. Kind regards, Lucie Follett Maitland, Jackie Browne and Andy Smith Whitchurch Conservation Group

Travellers Set Up Camp On St. Cross Land Travellers have set up camp on St. Cross land adjacent to Whitchurch Cricket Club and opposite All Hallows Church.

Councillor Lucie Maitland has notified Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council and Whitchurch Town Council and the police have been alerted.

Whitchurch Cricket Club will post updates.

WHITCHURCH WEDNESDAY WALKS These popular weekly walks have returned!

 Whitchurch Wednesday Walks is a friendly, independent local walking group, which takes advantage of the beautiful countryside and the variety of local walking routes.

Free walks take place every Wednesday morning, all year round, departing from the Gill Nethercott Centre, Winchester Street, Whitchurch at 10am (registration from 9.45).  There’s no need to book in advance – just turn up on the day.

Every week, whatever the weather, two circular walks take place – one is at a medium pace for around an hour, the other is longer and brisker – with refreshments available afterwards.  Our group of volunteer Walk Leaders take turns to plan and lead the walks, so every week there’s something different.  We also try to include more adventurous, or themed, walk options from time to time.

New walkers are always very welcome – be sure to arrive by 9.45 if it’s your first time.  Come on your own or bring a friend.  Dress for the weather, with suitable footwear.

Walking is the perfect low-impact exercise option – getting out into the countryside will improve your fitness and stamina, and is great for your wellbeing. Charmaine Hoey, Volunteer Walk Leader, writes: “All of the volunteer walk leaders are delighted that we’ve been able to get our weekly walks rolling again.  We’ve had a busy few months getting everything into place.  Our last regular walks took place in March 2020; in May of this year we got together to start discussing whether, when and how we could resume.  We agreed that it was important for both walk leaders and walkers to feel comfortable with walking together again, and so in June we invited regular walkers to join us for some trial walks in small groups.  These continued into July, with a gradual increase in group sizes.  By August, we were able to return to the familiar way of doing things, and to offer post walk refreshments in the GNC.  At the end of August we even had an “away” walk on the Highclere Estate, followed by a pub lunch.

There have been other changes going on in the background: Basingstoke & Deane BC have withdrawn their active support of the local Walking for Health groups, whilst the national coordinators of the Scheme have been rebranding and changing their focus. We felt that the time was right to become an independent walking group, so that we could continue to offer a choice of walks, and thanks to the generous support of the Whitchurch Association, we have been able to do this.

We recently celebrated our 12th anniversary and are hopeful for the future of the Whitchurch Wednesday Walks.  It’s great to be back walking together again, and we hope that you will come and join us.”

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED at Furlock Holmes With a few of our lovely volunteers leaving for University in the coming months, we are excitedly looking to expand our team.

We have the following Volunteer Vacancies:

– Team Leaders (Mondays, Saturdays or Sundays) – Animal Care Assistants (Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays or Sundays) – Admin Assistants (from home, flexible hours) – Fundraising Assistants (ad hoc days) – Transport Volunteers (ad hoc hours) – Volunteer Co-ordinator (mostly from home, flexible hours) – Foster Carers

If you are interested in volunteering or finding out more, please email enquiries@furlockholmes.uk

PLEASE NOTE: All roles are for those aged 18+ other than Animal Care Assistant roles which are for aged 14+

We are a friendly family of animal-lovers and are excited to meet you

Bere Mill Garden Open Day in Support of the National Garden Scheme.

This weekend our gardens will be opening for the last time this year. As Summer turns to Autumn, the gardens are looking spectacular. The garden covers five acres, allowing cultivated formal planting to meet the wild. Explore herbaceous borders, bog garden and Mediterranean gravel gardens with cistus, lavenders and tree peonies.

The gardens are open via the NGS. For tickets visit….. https://ngs.org.uk/view-garden/19432 or search for Bere Mill on the NGS website https://ngs.org.uk

Tickets: Adult – £7.50 Children Free. Well behaved dogs are also welcome.

All proceeds go to charity.

Thanks to the generosity of garden owners, volunteers and visitors, NGS have donated over £60 million to nursing and health charities and made an annual donation of £2.88 million in 2020 to beneficiaries including Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and the Queen’s Nursing Institute.