Three Castles Path

The Three Castles Path

The Three Castles Path is a long distance walking route of some 60 miles connecting Windsor Castle in Berkshire, Odiham Castle and Winchester Castle (both Hampshire). With the route inspired by the frequent journeys of King John, yes, the same hugely unpopular King who had to sign the “Magna Carta” at Runnymede in 1215 to avoid Civil War and the contents of which went on to form some important tenets of British War, such as the right of “free men” to justice and a fair trial.

Indeed, it was King John who had Odiham Castle built, laying approximately half way between his two main residences of Windsor and Winchester.

In Eversley the path follows a number of the official footpaths still maintained by the Parish Council, starting at the border with Yateley (in Mayflower Drive) (FP 24), crossing the main to  and then traversing the fields along FP 25 before following the road to Chequers Lane where the FP 16 skirts Eversley Copse (known colloquially as  Bluebell Woods) all the way to St Mary’s Church where FP 10 takes you across the ancient drovers path, the Welsh Drive and onto Hartley Wintney.

As such the sites of Churches often have a relationship with the oldest footpaths in Britain, in Arthur Watkins seminal book “The Old Straight Track” (1925), he describes the way in which many of the oldest paths in Britain were made and marked impacting the Britain we know today. He refers to the fact that there is evidence that many of the older churches were sited along these ancient footpaths and ancient burial grounds from well before the time of Christianity. The height of the burial grounds which were used to “sight” the paths from long distances away. It’s also true that in later times footpaths were necessary for people to get to/from their place of worship, hence the Church itself caused other footpaths to be created.

The Bronze Age Burial Barrow, Cudbury Clump on the border of Bramshill and Eversley is on a straight line between St Mary’s Church Eversley and St Michaels Church Heckfield, and therefore it’s not surprising that a much later route such as the 3 Castle’s path uses existing tracks.

The more detailed map shows the official footpaths of Eversley (many of which lead to the Church).

The Three Castles path through Eversley is marked in Blue.