The Zigzag Path

The village and the path

Selborne is a small village in eastern Hampshire that would be unremarkable except that Gilbert White was the curate here from 1751 until his death in 1793, and the letters he wrote to two naturalists about the parish became The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789. It is the book that made it respectable to look closely at ordinary things — a swallow, a hedge, a chalk stream — and it has never been out of print.

The Zigzag path was cut in 1753 by Gilbert White's brother John, who lived at the Wakes and wanted a direct but walkable route up the steep hanger behind the house. It was cut as a series of switchbacks with retaining walls, and it is still the way up the hill.

The hanger

A hanger, in Hampshire and Sussex usage, is a wood on a steep slope — usually beech, usually on chalk. Selborne Hanger is a classic example: tall beech on thin chalk soil, with very little undergrowth because beech casts deep shade and its leaf litter is slow to break down.

That thinness of understory is why the wood reads as a cathedral aisle rather than a jungle, and it is why the ground is firm and pleasant to walk on. It also means that anything growing on the forest floor is worth noticing:

• Dog's mercury in spring, in carpets before the beech comes into leaf.
• Stinking hellebore, which is local and looks like something that should not be eaten, correctly.
• Spurge laurel, an evergreen shrub with scented green flowers in late winter.
• The beech itself, which is not native here in the strictest sense — it was planted widely on chalk downland from the eighteenth century, and Selborne's hanger is one of the great beneficiaries.

The find

The cache is above the Zigzag, on the upper terrace, at the foot of the largest beech on that terrace. The tree has a massive root flare on the downhill side and the container sits under a mossy root on the north side, where the ground stays damp and the moss is thick.

It is a regular clip-lock with a logbook, a pencil and a set of swaps. Please trade fairly — this cache has been running since 2010 and its swaps have been maintained by the people who visit it, which is the whole point.

Do not dig around the root. The container is tucked into a natural hollow between two roots, not buried.

Terrain and access

• The Zigzag is steep, has steps and retaining walls, and is slippery when wet. It is not suitable for wheels.
• The wood is managed by the county wildlife trust and the National Trust owns the house. There is a small charge for the house museum, none for the paths.
• Fallen beech limbs are a real hazard on this slope in high wind. Do not shelter under the trees in a gale.
• The village has a pub and a shop. There is no parking at the Zigzag itself; use the village car park.

After the find

The Wakes, Gilbert White's house, is a five-minute walk from the bottom of the Zigzag and has the garden, the study and, in the meadow behind, a ha-ha that he wrote about. The hanging beech wood and the meadow together are about as good a two-hour walk as Hampshire offers.