BOAT: White Lane

• Overall Rating: 3
• Location: North Oakley, Hampshire.
• OS Explorer Map 144, 'Basingstoke, Alton and Whitchurch, Odiham, Overton and Hook'.
• Starting OS Grid Reference: SU551528
• Starting GPS Co-ordinates: N51 27' 20" W001 21' 10"
• Finishing OS Grid Reference: SU536520
• Finishing GPS Co-ordinates: N51 26' 50" W001 23' 30"
• To see: tumuli.
• ALWAYS follow the Greenlane Code!

This pleasant, if unremarkable, byway starts where the tarmac stops when travelling westwards down White Lane. Cutting a path through Patchbourne Wood, and then following the northern border of Great Dene Wood, this well maintained green lane is unrutted on a surface of earth and sparse gravel, with only the occasional tree root to challenge. It is also reassuringly wide, so that there is no prospect of over-eager branches claiming their due on your paintwork.

Descending ever downwards, this straight lane occasionally offers some great views over the open fields to the north, and the byway ends back on tarmac just north of Ashe Warren Farm. There really isn't much else to say about it, but it's certainly worth a drive, hence the 3 rating we gave it.

For those with an interest in the Neolithic era, two tumuli can be found north of the lane in Frith Wood, a few metres from the eastern end of the BOAT. There is a second, larger tumulus to the north of the western end of White Lane too.

These are Hampshire County Council Byways 24 and 7131, treated as one entry for convenience.

View White Lane in a larger map