This post mostly just comprises photographs taken on a ten kilometre walk (that’s six miles in old money) from our house in North End, Portsmouth to Hilsea and back on a partly sunny and partly cloudy Saturday, the purpose being not only to get some exercise and refresh our memories as to what the outside world was like but also to pick up some beer from a brewery in the city. We like supporting local businesses and we like beer. A lot. For future readers (hi to the pair of you) this walk took place as lockdowns eased following the dreadfully deadly and disruptive pandemic of 2020. Hopefully, the only lockdown and not the first of a series that will later become known collectively as the Plague Decade but I’ll edit this post if I’m one of the survivors should that happen.

The route we took followed the walking/running/cycling route that runs along Tipner Lake from the Mountbatten Centre at Alexandra Park to the Ports Creek (or Portsbridge) Roundabout that bridges the mainland of England with Portsea Island. Ooh! Feel your body quiver with this geographic information!

It was low tide as you can tell from the prevalence of mud and seaweed in the photos. You might also be wondering just what sort of lake is almost completely dry at low tide and the answer is that we just name things oddly in Portsmouth. Take a look at a map of the water to the west of Portsmouth and you’ll see Portchester Lake, Brick Kiln Lake, Spider Lake, Bombketch Lake, Wicor Lake, and Cams Lake too, and not a single one of them is a lake in the way a normal person might define one and expect to be surrounded by land. There’s a place in Portsmouth we call the Johnson & Johnson Roundabout. There are no Johnson & Johnson signs anywhere and it’s not a roundabout.

Anyway, some photos…

There has been a walking route of some description in this area for as long as I can remember, and when we were younger we used to do something called the Air Balloon Walk along it. You’re probably already either thinking “Okay, there’s no air balloon and it’s not a walk; I get it!” or “I’ve not heard of that dance before” but the truth is there was an air balloon (a pub by that name; fabulous place for rock; wall-to-wall metalheads; closed before its time because that’s the way of the world) and the walk was one that saw a fair number of us start in Cosham with a horrifying concoction of whatever vile things we could buy in an off-licence (think: Thunderbird, Cinzano Bianco, Mad Dog, that sort of thing) and swigging as we strolled south to the pub, before later moving onto Southsea for the clubs. Ah, memories. I’ve still just about got them.

I digress. Between 2017 and 2020 the whole area underwent some pretty extensive redevelopment works to improve sea defences. Sea defences on a lake. Yeah, don’t get me started on that again. Better and higher sea walls, better coastal erosion protection measures, changes to slipways, a shared use footpath, lots of wildflower planting, new tidal pools to encourage biodiversity, and social spots to enjoy the views was the result, and that’s what you’ll mostly see in the photographs here.

A couple of sights you’ll see if you walk this walk too. First up is the Sails of the South, a sculpture erected in 2001 between the northbound and southbound lanes of the M275, the motorway that permits one to escape Portsmouth at speed.

Other than the occasional bit of benching or sign indicating the sort of wildlife you can expect to see in the Tipner area the only other main distraction for the eyes on the southern portion of this Hilsea walk might be the allotments. Not something that’s ever appealed to us because it looks an awful lot like hard work but we can understand why others may feel differently. In addition to a few plot-owners tending to their spot of earth we also saw a couple of people clearly just sitting down and enjoying the fresh air, sunshine, and what views they had of the people like us walking along the path between them and what is often water. If you live in a place with no garden at all I can see why you might do that.

If you’re here for the wakeboarding photos then you’ll be pleased to know that your wait is over. At around the northernmost part of the walk to Hilsea there is a body of water that runs inside the path and parallel with the contours of the land with Tipner Lake and Portsbridge Creek. This is the Hilsea Lagoon, formerly a moat and part of the defensive fortifications along the land called the Hilsea Lines, becoming a boating lake in the mid-1930s. Right here you can find South Coast Wakepark and this or something similar has been in the area for several years. Well, it might have been here for years but we’ve never noticed it before because this recent wander beside the park was the first time we’d ever seen it in use. And I have to admit, it looked a lot of fun, even for people as totally inactive as us. We ended up watching for several minutes as someone was towed up and down the stretch of water, alternately using the rail at one end and the ramps nearer us.

We’d initially intended a circular route back to our house but realising that such a route would mean the second half of the walk would be along roads instead of by the shoreline this plan had already been rejected at this point in favour of a retracing of our steps instead so there are more photos of wakeboarders to come. First though, to the brewery.

We continued to the end of the lagoon, then crossed the main road over the bridge beside the old News Centre building.

Now, I love this building. Before the Spinnaker Tower this was one of the iconic buildings in the city. Concrete. Straight lines with a slight curve. Repetitive structures. That fabulous typeface for the word News. Lots of brutalist elements and I am a huge fan of brutalism. Weirdly, I don’t actually know anything about the history of this building with regards to its architect. As you can probably guess, though, it was the home of the Portsmouth News for a long time until the mid-2010s when they moved to new premises.

Edit: this building is now demolished as of 2024.

Continuing east for a while we crossed into the wooded area around the Hilsea Lines defences, locally known as Foxes Forest and because this is Portsmouth that’s most likely because someone realised there were no foxes anywhere near it and it would make a good addition to the list of disinformative place names in the city. This quiet, pleasant area that you absolutely don’t want to be anywhere near after dark – rumours of gangs of roaming tramps and drug-addled teenagers and ghosts of Victorian thieves (okay, maybe not that one) abound – is just north of the brewery that was our destination on this walk.

We picked up our order of beers and ciders from Urban Island, had a pleasant chat with Guy and Hayley, the owners, then did an about-turn and began the return leg of our gentle exercise.

Taking a slightly different path along Hilsea Lagoon we were able to get up much closer to the wakeboarding taking place there and get a whole new set of photos to bore the living crap out of you. With the steep banks of the bastions behind us we were also able to enjoy the shade for a while too which was quite a relief as it was decidedly warmer than we’d expected even allowing for our general levels of unfitness and intolerance for heat.

With our appetite for watching the wakeboarding in Hilsea sated we headed back to North End, down the southern arm of the lagoon and then onto the footpath leading towards Alexandra Park once more. Photos taken were fewer in number now and I concentrated on the wildflowers in particular. We’re fond of wildflower-planting as it’s our plan for part of our garden too. Not only is it good for nature, it’s also incredibly lazy because it requires little or no tending. Laziness appeals.

So, an enjoyable walk with some attractive views – possibly more so when the tide is in a bit – and, allowing for plenty of stops for photography as well as watching the wakeboarders jumping and splashing out on the lagoon and chatting with the brewers, we ended up averaging a little under four kilometres per hour walking pace. That’s just above the pace of mountain erosion or the natural speed of a brick pushed along a tarmac road by a light breeze. Close to three hours, a lot of it in the sun, and, yes, we got burnt a smidge. Still, it was nice to be out and we can recommend the picturesque Portsmouth walking route if you want to get some steps under your belt.