BOAT: Sunwood Lane

• Overall Rating: 3
• Location: Buriton, Hampshire.
• OS Explorer Map 120, 'Chichester'.
• Starting OS Grid Reference: SU759156
• Starting GPS Co-ordinates: N50 97' 10" W000 91 90"
• Finishing OS Grid Reference: SU761193
• Finishing GPS Co-ordinates: N50 96' 90" W000 91' 70"
• To see: not much.
• ALWAYS follow the Greenlane Code!

Ruts over a foot and a half deep in places.

This short byway should be a lovely drive through beech woodland. However, it has seen so much inappropriate use that it has been thoroughly defiled.

At the southern end, there is plenty of evidence of illegal off-roading in existence, not to mention a bit of fly-tipping here and there. The byway itself has been driven far too often in the wet by people seeking a cheap thrill in tooled-up 4x4's and as such the surface of this byway is very, very heavily rutted. They are so deep that there is even evidence of diff casings grounding out on the raised centre of the track.

By way of a brief description, the byway begins on the sharp hairpins of the country road serving access to Sunwood Farm. It leaves in a northerly direction on a bit of degraded tarmac up to the 'fly-tipping/illegal offroading' area, where the byway turns slightly to the left and starts its heavily-rutted climb up the steep gradient. Passing through beautiful beech woodland, the climb continues and ends abruptly back on the tarmac in the farm yard of Sunwood Farm (after which we have named this byway: if you know the correct moniker please comment below).

Leaving the farm yard, the byway turns into a dead-end trundle towards the Hampshire/Sussex border, at 'Hundred Acres'. Good old West Sussex County Council, in their inestimable wisdom, chose to re-classify the BOAT as a RUPP within their territory, and thus, since 2006, this strech of byway has been closed to motorised traffic, creating the dead-end.

In short, a minority have ruined this byway for the majority. There is little to see and it is very short indeed, so don't bother visiting and lets hope the byway one day recovers.

To Hampshire County Council these are Byways 44 & 47, combined here for convenience.

A very brief stretch of tarmac lies at the southern end, encouraging fly-tipping.