BOAT: White Lane

Location: White Ln, Greywell, Hampshire RG29 1, UK
  • Overall Rating: 4
  • Location: Greywell, Hampshire.
  • OS Explorer Map 144, 'Basingstoke, Alton and Whitchurch, Odiham, Overton and Hook'.
  • Starting OS Grid Reference: SU712508
  • Starting GPS Co-ordinates: N51 15' 10.88" W000 58' 50.11"
  • Finishing OS Grid Reference: SU687488 (or SU685463, see below!)
  • Finishing GPS Co-ordinates: N51 14' 00.75" W001 01' 05.89" (or N51 12'48.18" W001 01' 10.75", see below!)
  • To see: Basingstoke, Civil War earthworks at Basing House and Oliver's Battery, source of the River Loddon, the course of a Roman road.
  • ALWAYS follow the Greenlane Code!

NB: This lane is part of the Five Lanes End network. Please read the entries for all three lanes.

White Lane begins life as a concrete farm track that passes a collection of large barns as it heads south-west from Nateley Lane, just south-west of the very pleasant village of Greywell. As you would expect from a farm track, it's very wide and well maintained, and presents no challenge even at it's narrowest point: paintwork is safe and a Freelander would have absolutely no trouble here. Just after the barns, the surface changes to gravel and a little later earth. Travelling southbound (see picture, right) take care not to take the wrong track and enter a field by mistake: the BOAT heads off to the right.

Continuing southwards, the lane hits it's key feature (and the reason a pretty unremarkable lane scores a '4'!). At Five Lanes End both Down Lane and Ragmore Lane intersect White Lane in a very pleasant beech glade. Here you can continue in any direction (25 different possible combinations of greenlaning are at your disposal therefore!).

After Five Lanes End the lane continues south-westwards, following the boundary of some lush pasture on a gravelled surface for the majority of the remainder of it's length. On reaching around two thirds of the lane's total length, the course of a Roman road crosses the lane, but there's nothing to see above ground. Eventually the gravel track bears right, at which point you should head straight on, and here the lane reverts to an earthen surface. It continues for it's last 200m until it emerges onto a country road just west of the village of Upton Grey.

This is not the end of the lane, however! You have to drive quite a way to find it, down to the village of Weston Corbett (the lane begins again at SU683470, GPS co-ordinate N51 13' 05.42" W001 01' 20.40"). The reason behind this is that south of Upton Grey the lane has been re-designated as a bridleway (meaning you can't drive it, so don't try. It's fenced off anyway!) and further south still it has then been metalled to become part of a country road. White Lane re-emerges from under the tarmac in a south-easterly direction for it's last 400m or so, until it finally ends on Weston Road at the awesomely named 'Case Is Altered'. This little stretch of BOAT is really not worth going out of your way to drive unless you REALLY want to drive the entire length of the lane, but it's an interesting diversion none the less.

There's not much else to say about this pleasant lane. It scores a '4' because of the part it plays in 'the bigger picture': that is, it is one of many options which would theoretically allow you to spend an entire day out on the surprisingly high concentration of greenlanes in this area.

View White Lane in a larger map

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