Text and images by Helen Bonner
Meeting place and walk
We’ll meet in the free Eling car park by the bridge and spend some time on the bridge itself.
Note: To avoid paying the Toll, approach Eling Car Park from the South.
(What 3 Words ///overnight.melt.spell )
- Then we’ll walk up to the church and its atmospheric graveyard;
- Ten down to Goatee Beach on Southampton water, where you’ll see estuary sights as well as many shipping containers, fine electricity pylons, and the gleaming dome of the Marchwood incinerator.
- We’ll wander back to base.
After a coffee at the mill café, those who are up for the £7 entry fee can enter the mill itself, which offers very different opportunities to photograph wooden machinery, mill stones et al over 3 floors, and then go into the Visitors’ Centre to learn more and to play more with hands-on models.
There is a very pleasant walk around Bartley Water, the inlet on the other side of the bridge, used as the millpond.
Following a lottery grant this is now fully accessible to wheelchairs and pushchairs: https://www.elingexperience.co.uk/walks.
There are also two pubs, one by the water, so a pub lunch is an option.
If we’re in luck we may see a container ship being loaded/unloaded, the toll collector who crafts walking sticks – and even the two dogs that I saw with wheel prostheses! What more could you want?!
Booking
To book, go to WPS Photo Walk – Eling, Southampton
Or use the form below.
You’ll need to sign on with your WebCollect id, if you haven’t already.
If you have just logged on and don’t see the form,