Ted and I set off in July 2023 for an eight day visit to Hampshire, Dorset and Devon, staying in Winchester, Swanage and Exmouth, with the twin aims of sampling the pubs and beers and a few quirky railway and ferry journeys. These are our notes of the trip.
First stop was Winchester for three nights, joined by our friend Ken. We chose it because it is a historic city, the county town of Hampshire, which we had never visited before. We had a day to visit the tourist sights – not entirely successfully.
We planned to visit the Great Hall of Winchester Castle, which has a medieval round table somehow linked to King Arthur (no surprise there), but it was closed – they seem to close for random days without providing a reason.
We visited the cathedral (pictured)– but couldn’t go inside as there was a graduation service underway. Coming from Durham the cathedral seemed a little understated, however, the area around it makes for a pleasant wander, as does the remainder of the city centre and the banks of the River Itchen
Winchester city centre and the River Itchen
We’ll be adding the best of the pubs visited on this trip to the 2024 edition of our good pub guide (see Good UK Pubs 2023 for the current edition of the guide). Over three evenings we had plenty of time to explore what Winchester had to offer. Close to the station, the Albion is a plain old fashioned boozer and, in the same area, the Hyde Tavern is a fine unspoilt pub.
The Albion, the Hyde Tavern and the Black Boy
The most idiosyncratic pub we visited was the Black Boy on Wharf Hill with its interesting décor (and good beer).
There is plenty of choice in the city centre, including the Bakers Arms, hidden down a lane off the High Street. Two of our meals are worth a mention. The Gurkhas Inn served excellent Nepalese dishes and was packed on a Tuesday night. Lucky Lychee @ the Green Man pub served tasty and interesting Malaysian food.
A day out from Winchester took us to Hythe on Southampton Water for a ride on the Southampton to Hythe Ferry and the Hythe Pier Railway. The ferry runs hourly from Southampton’s Town Quay and on our visit they were using the small reserve boat. It is mainly used by people from Hythe – it is quicker than travelling by car or bus into Southampton. It has been under threat of closure but shortly after our visit it was bought by Red Tunnel Ferries and its future seems secure. After ten minutes, we arrived at the crumbling Hythe Pier.
Transport Nerdery 1 – Hythe Pier is 640m long and hosts the oldest continuously operating public pier train in the world, constructed in 1922 to 2ft gauge and electrified. The original locomotives, coaches and baggage trolley are still in use. Off we pootled to town – a 2 minute journey. Several times the railway and pier have been saved from closure and there are signs everywhere in Hythe of the community efforts to raise the funds to maintain them. The ferry, pier and railway all deserve to be better known by visitors to the area.
In Hythe the weather was good, it was market day and the town was busy. We sat in the beer garden of the Lord Nelson and watched the pier train rumble by.
By way of contrast, the trek between Southampton Central Station through the city centre to the Town Quay was depressing. However, on the return journey we found a couple of decent pubs near the quay – the Dancing Man Brewery in the former Wool Hall and the Platform Tavern (both pictured)
From Winchester Ken headed home to Perth and Ted and I headed for Swanage by train. Our National Rail destination was Wareham, but spare time enabled us to have a slight diversion through the New Forest from Brockenhurst to Lymington, for a look around the town and a pint in the Bosun’s Chair.
In the summer there is a network of open top bus services around the New Forest from both Hythe Pier and Brockenhurst station – unfortunately the times weren’t suitable for us.
At Wareham we transferred to the Swanage Railway for the ride through Purbreck by heritage diesel class 117 train to Corfe Castle then on by steam train.
Nerdery 2 – The line from Swanage to Wareham closed to passengers in 1972, then reopened in stages as a heritage railway from 1979, reaching Corfe Castle and Norden in 1993. The train service to Wareham is recent – the first attempt was in 2017 and even now its future is not secure, due to high costs and limited numbers of passengers – it might help if the trains were advertised in any way at Wareham station.
Swanage itself is a strange place, living in a 1950s holiday resort time warp. We were based in the excellent Rivendell Guest House for two nights and explored the souvenir stalls, fish and chip shops and the mostly very ordinary pubs (though we liked the Red Lion).
Our pIans for the full day on the Isle of Purbreck (it isn’t an island) were scuppered by horrific weather – it didn’t stop pouring with rain all day. We had hoped to visit the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers but the lack of a bus service and the weather put paid to that. Instead we caught a bus back to Wareham for a drink of lunch in the Horse and Groom (pictured).
We then stopped off in Corfe Castle and visited the excellent Fox Inn, where we got soaked just making our way to the outside toilet.
The journey to Exmouth involved a bus from Swanage to Bournemouth, train to Weymouth, bus to Bridport, bus to Axminster via Lyme Regis, train to Exeter, train to Exmouth and a local bus to our hotel. The bus journey to Bournemouth takes 75mins, is an open topper and includes a trip on the ferry to Sandbanks. Fortunately it was dry, though high winds were blowing the branches of the roadside trees against the bus and showering us with leaves.The vehicle chain ferry across Poole Harbour dates from 1923 and the current boat from 1994.
From Bournemouth to Lyme Regis we covered the route in our 2014 bus trip from Dorset to Norfolk. This time we broke the journey at Bridport (pictured) for an hour – time for lunch in the Ropemakers to sample the local Palmer’s beer.
The seaside places were busy and there were plenty of walkers in the countryside – despite the wind it was sunny and warm in the shade. However, Axminster was quiet and appeared rundown – maybe it was in comparison with the resorts. There is a fine micropub, the Ale Way. at Axminster station, which we had time to try – trains were delayed because the wind had brought a tree down on the line (in July!). The rest of the journey was uneventful and we checked into the Premier Inn on the seafront for three nights and set out to explore Exmouth. We can particularly recommend the beers at the Grapevine (the pulled pork nachos were good too) and the food at the Namaste Himalaya restaurant.
Our first day out from Exmouth was a Sunday trip via Exeter to Okehampton, to try out the recently reopened railway line. Nerdery 3: The railway to Okehampton closed to passengers in 1972, though the track remained in place for freight from the nearby Meldon Quarry. This allowed occasional trains to operate on summer Sundays between 1997 and 2019. Regular services were restored in November 2021 and trains operate hourly , taking 38 minutes to reach Okehampton from Exeter St Davids.
Okehampton lies on the fringes of Dartmoor and is central for exploring the area. The train is faster than road transport for commuters into Exeter, a network of connecting bus services has been developed and passenger numbers are high.
Okehampton station is at the top of a long, steep hill above the town centre. In both directions it is worth catching the connecting bus. We spent a pleasant few hours wandering around from pub to pub – it was the Okey music festival, pubs were busy and gearing up for live acts – our favourite was the Fountain Inn.
The following day we took the Starcross Ferry across the estuary of the River Exe – it had been cancelled the two days previously, due to high winds. Near the pier and station is a pumping station for Brunel’s Atmospheric Railway – it only operated from 1846 to 1848 and today there is no public access – only a plaque on the wall.
The Starcross pubs were closed on a Monday lunchtime, so we jumped on a bus to nearby Cockwood. We spent an hour or two in the Ship Inn, before returning to Starcross station and catching a train to Exmouth, stopping off in Topsham en route, before our final night in Exmouth
The trip ended with the long cross-country slog back to Durham. The proposal to close most ticket offices in England had just been announced and there was a group outside Exmouth station asking people to respond to the consultation and object to the closures. It was good to see virtually every one entering the station give their support.
Practicalities
Hotels. The hotels we used on this trip were:
Winchester: Winchester Royal Hotel, St Peter St, SO23 8BS
Swanage: Rivendell Guest House, 58 Kings Rd West, BH19 1HR
Exmouth: Premier Inn, Exmouth Seafront, The Esplanade, EX8 2AZ (pictured)
Pubs and restaurants mentioned in the text:
Winchester: Albion **, 2 Stockbridge Rd SO23 7BZ; Hyde Tavern, 57 Hyde St SO23 7DY; Black Boy, 1 Wharf Hill SO23 9NQ; Bakers Arms, 22 High St, SO23 9JX; Gurkhas Inn, 17 City Rd SO23 8SD; Lucky Lychee @ the Green Man, 53 Southgate St SO23 9EH
Hythe: Lord Nelson, 5 High St SO45 6AG
Southampton: Dancing Man Brewery, Wool House, Town Quay SO14 2AR; Platform Tavern **, Town Quay SO14 2NY
Lymington: Bosun’s Chair, Station St SO41 3BA
Swanage: Red Lion, 63 High St BH19 2LY
Worth Matravers: Square and Compass, BH19 3LF
Wareham: Horse & Groom, St John’s hill BH20 4LZ
Corfe Castle: Fox Inn, 8 West St BH20 5HD
Bridport: Ropemakers, 36 West St DT6 3QP
Axminster: Ale Way, Axminster Station EX13 5PF
Exmouth: Grapevine, 2 Victoria Rd EX8 1DL; Namaste Himalaya, 8 High St EX8 1NN
Okehampton: Fountain Hotel, Fore St EX20 1AP
Cockwood: Ship Inn, Church Rd EX6 8NU
** As of October 2023, these maps are marked on Google Maps as Temporarily Closed.
Getting around: Information and timetables can be found on these sites:
National Rail services – The train service from London to Winchester, Southampton, Wareham and Weymouth and from Axminster to Exeter is provided by South Western Railway. http://www.southwesternrailway.com
. Services between Exmouth and Exeter, Okehampton and Starcross are provided by Great Western Railway http://www.gwr.com .
Hythe Ferry and Pier Railway: http://www.hytheferry.co.uk
Swanage Railway: www.swanagerailway.co.uk For information about the through service to Wareham see: ‘Swanage resists swansong, through Wareham service on a knife edge’, James Abbott, Modern Railways, August 2023, p76. Rail Magazine no.993, 4-17 Oct 2023, reports that the service is under review following a £100,000 loss in 2023.
Swanage – Sandbanks Ferry – Bournemouth bus service (no.50) is operated by Morebus www.morebus.co.uk as is the Swanage – Corfe Castle – Wareham service (no.40) and the New Forest Tour, three open top bus routes operated from 1 July to mid-September. Details are in the Timetables and Maps section of the site’
The Weymouth – Bridport – Axminster buses (Nos. X51 and X53) are operated by First Bus. See www.firstbus.co.uk/wessex-dorset-somerset/plan-journey/timetables/
More information about the Okehampton line is at www.dartmoorline.com .
The Starcross Ferry operates between Easter and the end of October. Details are on the Starcross – Exmouth Ferry Facebook page.
The bus between Starcross and Cockwood is operated by Stagecoach – the No. 2 Exeter – Newton Abbot service. www.stagecoachbus.com . The distance is easily walkable.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Ken Donald for his company on the Winchester leg of the trip
Copyright: The text and photographs are Copyright (c) Steve Gillon 2023.
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