Finally Found Out What's in Rowland's Castle

We continued our walk along the Shipwright's Way on December 4 to Rowland's Castle. A stop on our regular train to/from London and we always wondered what was there. Turns out there's no castle in Rowland's Castle, so that was disappointment number 1.

The route for this day was very short - about 6 miles - if we followed the designated path, so we decided to add a detour which turned out to be much nicer than the actual route and ended up to be 10.4 miles. The weather was wonderful. We went along rolling hills and fields and saw a windmill in the distance. Towards the beginning we happened along St. Michael's Church which was built on top of some Roman ruins. The church itself was about a thousand years old - incredible. Further on we walked along a wooded path and spied a herd of deer in the field, several were white which I hadn't seen around the area.

Our "tea break" for this day was a tea shop in Compton where we had a spicy coronation chicken sandwich, cookies and tea. Walking out of town we found a wonderful topiary bush cut in the shape of a bunny.

Disappointment 2 was the Robin Hood Inn. Another pub where we had an incredibly small room and very average food. No need to return to Rowland's Castle or this pub.