This walk is great for some amazing views and fairly challenging terrain. This walk is 3.2 miles long and tackles some sizeable hills.
Beginning at Big mead park in Shanklin, adjacent to the car park is St Blasius Church, walk through the churchyard which leads you over the brick wall and to a wooden gate. Follow the path up through the field then continue once through another gate into the neighbouring field. Be aware - there are commonly cattle in this field so keep your dog on a lead (need to put on a lead through churchyard anyway). Once at the top of the field - you guessed it - another gate. This takes you up a very steep muddy/rock path to the top fields. From the top (after the next wooden gate), you can turn left to walk up towards Luccombe and Ventnor Downs, or, for this walk, continue walking straight.
This path parallel to the fence takes you around the contours of the field, offering brief windows of views out over Sandown Bay. At the end of this field, there are two gates - one that takes you in the direction of Ventnor, and one just before the end, which takes you down the steep cliff face. For the purpose of this circular - we will take the route down the cliff, however, if you do want to explore the Ventnor route, it takes you over the downs adjacent to the cycle track that we will be navigating to, so there is potential to make this walk a bit longer and try this direction. Check out the walk to Ventnor we suggest here!
Walking down this cliff is a fairly steep descent, with a fairly old railing support and very uneven steps carved from the rocks and topsoil. While navigating your way down, do check out the views through the clearings in the trees - they are really quite something - stretching right over to Culver in Sandown. Once at the bottom, walk across the fields, using the step to get over into the neighbouring field. From here, you should be fairly clear on vegetation and have some pretty awesome views of the Shanklin-Sandown area. Keep walking north and climb the step into the third field, which again treats you to some amazing views. Then once to the other hedge boundary, walk down the field and join the path at the bottom. Follow this path to the gate, which will lead you onto the Wroxall-Shanklin cycle track. From here, follow the track around until you get to the end of the entrance road to Languard Holiday Park. You can either cross the road and take the steps up to the train station, take a left for Lidl or a right for the town centre.
Walking down this cliff is a fairly steep descent, with fairly old railing support and very uneven steps carved from the rocks and topsoil. While navigating your way down, do check out the views through the clearings in the trees - they are really quite something - stretching right over to Culver in Sandown. Once at the bottom, walk across the fields, using the step to get over into the neighbouring field. From here, you should be fairly clear on vegetation and have some pretty awesome views of the Shanklin-Sandown area. Keep walking north and climb the step into the third field, which again treats you to some amazing views. Then once to the other hedge boundary, walk down the field and join the path at the bottom. Follow this path to the gate, which will lead you onto the Wroxall-Shanklin cycle track. From here, follow the track around until you get to the end of the entrance road to Languard Holiday Park. You can either cross the road and take the steps up to the train station, take a left for Lidl or a right for the town centre.
Dog friendly
Parking and public transport accessible
Steep in places
Steps
