Netley Military Cemetery and A Long Walk

I’ve been trying to avoid going into libraries as there are books at home where there really shouldn’t be any books (in kitchen cupboards, under the bed, in the utility room etc).  But the temptation became too strong on Friday and I popped into a library for just a few minutes and came out loaded with books.  I had a particularly good find, with about 5 books, on ghosts in Hampshire.  So armed with further knowledge where a few spooks might be hiding out we went to Netley Military Cemetery.

The cemetery is accessed through the Royal Victoria Country Park (if you’re planning to go park at the chapel car park and you’ll have less of a walk) so you get to admire what remains of Netley military hospital i.e. the chapel.  Before the hospital was demolished it was home to a ghost of a nurse but she hasn’t been seen since the building was knocked down.  Although the female toilet in the chapel (which is now a museum) has some ghostly activity.  Anyway, it’s rumoured that people who’ve visited the cemetery have seen shadow people and heard the footsteps of soldiers marching.  We went to investigate (well, as far as you can investigate with Tabitha in tow).

It was really peaceful when we went but there is a strange undercurrent feel to the cemetery.  You can quiet easily imagine strange going ons when the daylight hours fade or you find yourself totally alone.

I’ve never been to a military cemetery before.  It’s really a sad place when you walk around and look at the ages of the men who died.  There were graves for soldiers and sailors from all over the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and even places you wouldn’t normally expect like Belgium and Germany.  Most, from the inscriptions, died at Netley hospital.

Today we didn’t even attempt to look for the supernatural.  Another book I’d take out of the library was ‘Walking in Hampshire’ so I picked a walk starting from Wickham that took us through a disused railway line and into what remains of the Royal Forest of Bere.

This was one of the walks with less mileage and in my capacity to completely underestimate things I thought 4 1/2 miles would be a doddle for us to do in, perhaps, about an hour and a half.  I had totally ignored the fact that Tabitha has very little legs and our track record of getting lost in forests is particularly high.

It was beautiful nonetheless:

Just after I took this photo it all went wrong:

Tabitha developed an intense fear of horse poop, of which there was plenty.  This was topped only by her sudden intense fear of stones on pathways, of which there were even more.  And it was around this time we couldn’t work out the directions in the book.  We ended up back on a main road and had to walk along the verge, dodging cars and trying to persuade Tabitha to walk as she’d suddenly found grass verges to be equal to horse poop and stones.

As you probably have guessed by now we didn’t take 1 1/2 hours to complete the walk.  More like double that and then add a bit more!