Salisbury Plain and Shaftesbury

A 402 km loop

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Why this ride

A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. Out of London and back again: 402 km, roughly 7 h 18 in the saddle. The stops in between: Hook, Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Basingstoke.

Roadbook

1. London start

   London is the one place on the map where the best advice is to leave the bike at the edge. The centre around Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square is a maze of one-way streets, bus lanes, taxis and tourists, and parking is limited and expensive. The city also has a congestion charge and a low-emission zone, whose rules for motorcycles have changed over the years, so check the current conditions for your own machine before you ride in. For a start and finish, a quiet side street or a secure garage on the outskirts is a better plan.

   What you are stopping for here is history on a large scale. St Martin-in-the-Fields, a handsome eighteenth-century church with a tall steeple and a classical portico, stands at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square, and its crypt hosts a café, a gallery and a brass-rubbing centre. It is famous for its lunchtime concerts and for its work with homeless people. Across the road, Nelson's Column rises over the square, with its bronze lions, and the National Gallery stretches along the north side.

   The city has some 7.5 million people, and it is never quite finished with itself. Roman Londinium was a muddy trading post on the Thames, and the medieval city grew into a great port, burning down in 1666 and rebuilding in brick and stone. Westminster, a short walk south, holds the Palace of Parliament and the Abbey, where English monarchs have been crowned for nearly a thousand years. The riding here is entirely about getting out: the A3, A4 and A40 lead to quiet lanes in Surrey, the Chilterns and Kent, and a very early start on a Sunday morning makes it easy.

   Fuel is available, but it is among the most expensive in the country, so top up on the outskirts. For a drink, a pub in the side streets off Whitehall, with its brass and etched glass, is as London as it gets. And when the light fades, the square is full of buskers, pigeons and people, and the lamps along the Mall glow.

2. Hook fuel

   Hook is a busy Hampshire village built around a crossroads and a railway station, and it exists for most riders as a convenient refuelling stop just off junction 5 of the M3. It is not a place of great charm, but the countryside around it is pleasant, with woods, commons and old villages, and there are a few surprises close by.

   Odiham, a few kilometres south, is a handsome small town with Georgian houses and old inns. Nearby are the ruins of Odiham Castle, an octagonal keep built for King John, who is said to have ridden out from here to Runnymede to seal Magna Carta in 1215. The Basingstoke Canal passes close by, and its towpath is a quiet place to walk. RAF Odiham is home to the RAF's Chinook helicopters, and you will often hear them overhead.

   Hartley Wintney, to the north-east, has a large village green, a cricket pitch and a row of antique shops. The commons around it are covered with heather and oak, and in late summer the heather turns purple.

   The riding around Hook is a mix of fast A-roads and narrow country lanes. The A30 and A287 can be busy, but the lanes to the south and west are quiet, with tight bends, high hedges and occasional tractors. Watch for mud and gravel after rain, and for horses and cyclists on the narrow roads.

   Fill the tank in Hook, which is quick and painless, then decide whether the day deserves more. If it does, Odiham's old coaching inns do a decent lunch, and the canal towpath behind the town is the quietest ten minutes in this corner of Hampshire.

3. Salisbury sight

   Approach Salisbury from almost any direction and you will see the spire first, a slender stone needle rising above the water meadows, the tallest church spire in Britain at around 123 metres. The cathedral beneath it was built with remarkable speed in the thirteenth century, which gives it an unusual unity of style, and it stands in the middle of a vast, peaceful lawn, the Cathedral Close, surrounded by elegant old houses. John Constable painted it from the meadows, and the view he chose is still there.

   The cathedral's chapter house holds one of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta, the charter of 1215 that limited the power of King John and became a cornerstone of English law. It is in remarkably good condition, and it is worth seeing. The city itself grew up in the thirteenth century when the bishop moved down from Old Sarum, an Iron Age hill fort a couple of kilometres north, whose ramparts and castle ruins are still visible.

   Salisbury lies at the meeting of several rivers, the Avon, the Nadder, the Wylye and the Bourne, and the water meadows around the city are lush and green. To the north stretches Salisbury Plain, a vast chalk upland, much of it used by the army for training, with signs warning of tanks crossing and red flags flying when firing is in progress. Stonehenge, the most famous prehistoric monument in Europe, stands on the plain about fifteen kilometres north of the city.

   The riding around Salisbury is a pleasant mix of open chalk downland, with long views and gentle curves, and narrow lanes through river valleys and villages. The main roads, like the A303 past Stonehenge, can be very busy, especially in summer, and slow. Salisbury has plenty of cafés, pubs and restaurants, as well as fuel and other services, though the city centre has a complicated one-way system and parking can be difficult. Park on the edge and walk in.

4. Shaftesbury food

   Gold Hill is one of the most famous streets in England, and you have probably seen it without knowing its name: a steep, cobbled lane lined with old cottages, curving down from the top of the town, with the green fields of the Blackmore Vale spread out below. In 1973 it featured in a television advertisement for Hovis bread, directed by a young Ridley Scott, which became one of the best-loved adverts in British history. It is too steep and cobbled for bikes, so park in the town and walk down.

   Shaftesbury sits on top of a greensand ridge, high above the surrounding countryside, and it is one of the oldest towns in Dorset. King Alfred the Great founded an abbey here in the late ninth century, with his daughter as its first abbess, and it became one of the richest nunneries in England, especially after the relics of the murdered King Edward the Martyr were brought here. Only the foundations survive, in a peaceful garden next to Gold Hill. Thomas Hardy called the town Shaston in his novels.

   The views from Shaftesbury are wonderful, stretching over the Blackmore Vale to the west and Cranborne Chase to the east. Cranborne Chase is an area of rolling chalk downland, woods and valleys, once a royal hunting ground, and it has some of the best riding in southern England. The B3081 east of Shaftesbury climbs Zig Zag Hill, a short series of tight hairpin bends up the scarp of the downs, before continuing over the Chase through beautiful, quiet countryside.

   The town has a good selection of cafés, pubs and restaurants, and the high street is lively, with independent shops. Fuel and other services are available. The lanes around Shaftesbury are narrow, often sunken between high hedges, with blind bends and steep gradients, and they can be muddy and slippery after rain. The weather can be changeable, and on top of the ridge the wind can be strong, but on a clear day the views make it all worthwhile.

5. Basingstoke fuel

   Let us be honest about Basingstoke. It is a large, modern town on the M3, built up rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s as an overspill town for London, with a sprawl of housing estates, business parks and so many roundabouts that it is sometimes called Doughnut City. It is not a place anyone visits for its beauty. But it is very good at what riders need from it: fuel, food and a quick way back onto the road.

   There is a little more depth to it if you look. Jane Austen was born and grew up in the village of Steventon, a few kilometres south-west, where her father was rector, and she attended balls in Basingstoke as a young woman. The town has a statue of her outside the Willis Museum. On the eastern edge of town, in the village of Old Basing, stand the ruins of Basing House, once one of the largest private houses in England, which was besieged for years during the Civil War and finally stormed and destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's troops in 1645.

   The landscape around Basingstoke is part of the North Hampshire Downs, a gentle chalk upland with rolling fields, woods and small villages. The lanes to the west and south, towards Overton, Whitchurch and the Test valley, are quiet and pleasant, with gentle curves and little traffic. The River Test, one of the most famous chalk streams in the world for fly fishing, runs clear and cold through water meadows. Further south, the roads towards Stockbridge and Salisbury cross open downland with long views.

   Basingstoke has fuel stations, supermarkets, fast food and every kind of service, all easily accessible from the ring road. The town centre is dominated by a large shopping centre, Festival Place, and is best avoided on a bike. The M3 and the A303 are the main routes west and can be busy, especially on Friday afternoons and summer weekends. Use Basingstoke for what it is good at, then head off into the countryside.

6. London finish

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