To take a short walk, lunch at a pub and a wander round the ancient church of a Hampshire village is still one of the great pleasures of life. Local author Barry Shurlock recommends some of Hampshire's finest spots to enjoy a stroll.

THE River Itchen rises near Hinton Ampner House, before flowing north through Cheriton and Tichborne to join the Alre on the outskirts of Alresford, where it turns due west. This part of Hampshire has been civilised and settled far more than 1,000 years. Distantly sandwiched between the A272 and the A31, and protected by conservation laws, it seems likely to endure for some while.

Cheriton is classically pretty, with the central green surrounded by cottages and threaded through by the river. How did such tiny places manage to achieve such charm? The answer, of course, is that they were by-passed by the pressures of urbanisation and 'discovered' by fugitives from the towns, who wanted to preserve what had been destroyed elsewhere. They are economic fossils, and all the better for being that! However, Cheriton has experienced horrific moments: it was almost wiped out be the Black Death, and on March 29 1644 witnessed a battle as bloody as anything seen in recent times.

Tichborne has no great trauma to its past, although the existence in the church of a Catholic aisle marked off with iron railings signifies a religious upset not unrelated to the Civil War. This was the break of Henry VIII with Rome, which meant that the Tichborne family, lords of the manor since the Conquest and staunch Catholics, were out of pace with national events. The railings are a statement that in the country it was often possible to compromise on the great issues of the day. Certainly the Tichbornes, seated at Tichborne House, managed to survive and to keep their hold on the village.

n The necessity of making clear that a place is older than somewhere else that was itself founded in the early 13th century is one of those eccentricities which makes the English countryside so interesting.

The 13th-century settlement is New Alresford, a bishop's town set up according to a standard plan. Its older and less photogenic cousin is to the north, across the other side of a great dam built by a bishop of Winchester to create a huge pond for farming fish and powering mills.

Old Alresford proper with its triangular green lies below the church, which has its own settlement of several large properties. Foremost of these is Alresford House, built with an admiral's prize money. Sir George Brydges Rodney (1719-92) had been brought up at nearby Avington House, when his father's fortune disappeared in the South Sea Bubble. Rodney had a long, somewhat patchy career, culminating in 1782 in a brilliant action in the West Indies against the French fleet. Rodney lies buried in a vault in the chancel of Old Alresford church, which also contains a splendid marble monument to his wife, Jane, who died at the age of 27 in childbirth.

It was in Old Alresford that Mary Sumner (1828-1921) started to hold those meetings of young mothers which became the Mothers' Union. She lived in Old Alresford Place (now a diocesan retreat) with her husband George, who was the rector.

n Villages on the south bank of the River Itchen between Alresford and Winchster have retained the charm and character of isolated settlements. Ovington, Lavington and Avington share the Anglo-Saxon suffix 'ington', meaning 'meadow place', but that is their only similarity. Ovington has a pub and a church, and Avington is an estate village, which once belonged to the owners of Avington House. Lavington is hardly a settlement at all, no more than a fine Georgian house and a farm.

Ovington is today best known for the Bush Inn, situated near the river and oozing with character. Long after the introduction of decimalisation, it still insisted on presenting its menu in pounds, shillings and pence! Nearby a footpath runs over a footbridge and along the Itchen river bank. This is a delightful rarity hereabouts, as most Itchen landowners have long kept the public from their banks.

The contract between Ovington today and about 130 years ago, when it had a population of 163, is emphasised by a contemporary guidebook which shows that the place was then endowed with a shop, two shoemakers, a blacksmith, a post office, and a 'brewer and beerhouse'. All this was presided over by Baroness Elizabeth Von Zandt, of Ovington Park (now Ovington House).

The road between Ovington and Avington is narrow and winds beneath steep banks. The lands on the north side of the river are less precipitous, which may explain why the larger villages developed on this side. Avington is so much an estate village that the Georgian parish church, with its amazing box pews, stands in the park of the great house. Its home farm is a mile to the south, near Hampage Wood. By all accounts, the local people were treated generously by the owners of Avington House and rallied to protect local property from a mob from Winchester during the agricultural riots of the 1830s.

The mansion house is spectacularly sited overlooking an artificial lake - sadly, now drying up - and has a long history. Charles II stayed here with his mistress Nell Gwynne as guests of the notorious Countess of Shrewsbury. Its owners until 1848 were members of the Brydges family, dukes of Chandos. Today it can be contemplated from a pleasant picnic area beside the lake.