FROM Petersfield the walk to the Poets Stone is about four and a half miles -- ideal for a coronavirus lockdown walk.

Head up Tilmore Road until you come to the entrance drive to Steep Nursing Home.

Right next to the drive is a signposted path across some fields.

Follow it up past Bedales’ grounds, with the sand pits on your right, where sand martins nest, and keep on past Steep Church to Church Road – you can drive and park here if you like.

Go across the playing field opposite, and follow the footpath downhill through woodland to a swing gate at the bottom.

Across the shallow valley are fine views of the wooded slopes of Ashford Hill and the chalky Shoulder of Mutton Hill, with its memorial stone to Steep poet Edward Thomas.

Bear left around the field edge and continue to another swing gate and out on to the road, and follow it right for about 40 yards – another parking spot here.

You will come to a rushing narrow waterfall on your left, with a narrow path beside it.

The waterfall is over-flow from a small stream fed lake hidden behind trees on the left.

Here architect Ken Claxton built his 1960s bungalow Millponds, overhanging the pond with a glass floor in parts so you could see the water below.

Once past the spectacular waterfall, you cross a field, follow the path through some woods and come to a private drive – but also a footpath.

Turn right and follow it to the road, and again, there are parking spots along the road.

At this point, you can just make out Berryfield Cottage, a solid stone house with a tiled roof.

This was the first of three Steep homes for Edward Thomas and his family.

He found fame as a First World War poet, but was killed in 1917 during the Battle of Arras.

And now the walk gets interesting.

On the other side of the lane, a path alongside a field leads you to the base of Shoulder of Mutton hill, a focal point of the west to east Hangers.

Shoulder of Mutton Hill is about 750ft high, and is now sadly bare of its historically locally-famed magnificent beech trees, which were uprooted in the hurricane of 1987.

The frontal assault is up a chalk path – although some steps provide relief.

Follow the path straight up – and it is up, very steep – until you reach the Edward Thomas memorial stone.

Here there are stunning panoramic views of the surrounding countryside across Petersfield and the South Downs.

If you have time, it is well worth finding a shady spot and relaxing into the view.

Having lived in and around Petersfield most of my life, an early-morning outing to Shoulder of Mutton Hill, with its deer, foxes and spring hares, and the vistas from the poet’s stone, are the finest thing.

Above the woody hangers stretching away to Langrish on one side, and Hawkley on the other, keen-eyed buzzards and kites, wings spread, ride the thermals searching the fields below for small prey or carrion.

During lambing time on a lower meadow opposite the hill, there sometimes sits a hooped roof wheeled shepherd’s hut.

It’s England at its best, and the beauty, peace and early-morning solitude can take the breath away.

And for those not up to the hill ascent, a drive through Steep on the A32 takes you up Stoner Hill, the westward neighbour of Shoulder of Mutton.

At the top turn right into Cockshott Lane, pass the Edward Barnsley Workshop, and park along the lane, and walk along it until you come to its junction with Old Litten Lane.

Here turn into right into the woods, there is a path, and you will come to the Poets Stone viewpoint, a few yards higher than the granite memorial.