BOAT: Batsford

• Overall Rating: 3
• Location: Swampton, Hampshire.
• OS Explorer Map 131, 'Romsey, Andover & Test Valley'.
• Starting OS Grid Reference: SU410505
• Starting GPS Co-ordinates: N51 25' 30" W001 41' 30"
• Finishing OS Grid Reference: SU415507
• Finishing GPS Co-ordinates: N51 25' 40"  W001 40' 60"
• To see: not much.
• ALWAYS follow the Greenlane Code!

This relatively short, unremarkable byway begins where it leaves the un-named country road that runs from just west of Swampton to Five Lanes. Following the contours on a surface of unrutted earth that, due to the greenlane's situation on the side of a hill, never seems to get too damp even in the wettest weather, the byway is remarkable well defined by low the vegetation that borders it (see picture, right). The trees do not seem to have grown in at all, unless this lane has been recently cleared.

As the first footpath leaves the lane due north the correct course can be confusing. A number of people have evidently taken the wrong course: the footpath is the left-most branch, the byway the 'middle', and the illegal off-roading perpetrated by some fools lies to the right. Don't be one of them.

The lane then turns hard right around the back of the hill and begins a steepening descent featuring a sharp turn back to the north around an equine facility.

The byway ends back on the tarmac amongst some housing in the pleasant village of Swampton where it forms a junction with the B3048. Certainly worth a drive if you happen to be in the area, but I wouldn't make a detour for it.

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