Photo: David Howard · CC BY-SA 2.0Parks and walks in Wickham
The South Downs National Park reaches the edge of Wickham. A park or playing field is within a 5-minute walk for 26% of residents. Parks and playing fields in Wickham add up to 0.8 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Wickham grades D for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Wickham?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Wickham’s strongest suit is the South Downs National Park close by. Where it falls short is park space per person.
Wickham grades D for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Wickham, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
100
100
100
100
100
Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Wickham is 50th of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 2,100 to 2,300 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Wickham falls furthest behind on homes near a park, where 55 of the 59 others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mullion Cornwall | A+ | 3.7 | 100% | 2.5 | 64% |
| 2 | Broughton Buckinghamshire | A+ | 8 | 100% | 6.5 | 0% |
| 3 | Brockham Surrey | A+ | 7.4 | 94% | 4.4 | 38% |
| 4 | Bestwood Village Nottinghamshire | A | 43.8 | 100% | 5.2 | 0% |
| 5 | Deepcut Surrey | A | 8.4 | 100% | 6.8 | 0% |
| 6 | Springwell Tyne and Wear | A | 5 | 100% | 6.7 | 0% |
| 7 | Smalley Derbyshire | A− | 2.9 | 100% | 4.1 | 0% |
| 8 | Streethay Staffordshire | A− | 10.1 | 100% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 9 | Gilwern Gwent | A− | 1.9 | 100% | 2 | 83% |
| 10 | Newstead Nottinghamshire | B+ | 2.6 | 100% | 3.7 | 0% |
| 11 | Woodcote Oxfordshire | B+ | 1.6 | 84% | 3.5 | 99% |
| 12 | Hanslope Buckinghamshire | B+ | 1.9 | 100% | 4.9 | 0% |
| 13 | Church Warsop Nottinghamshire | B+ | 4.1 | 85% | 4.2 | 0% |
| 14 | Chiddingfold Surrey | B+ | 2.2 | 87% | 2.5 | 68% |
| 15 | Wells-next-the-Sea Norfolk | B+ | 2 | 70% | 1.9 | 65% |
| 16 | Charing Kent | B+ | 2.7 | 85% | 2.1 | 56% |
| 17 | Brimscombe and Thrupp Gloucestershire | B+ | 2.1 | 12% | 5.9 | 89% |
| 18 | Sharlston West Yorkshire | B+ | 4.9 | 93% | 3 | 0% |
| 19 | Gamston (Rushcliffe) Nottinghamshire | B+ | 2.7 | 86% | 4.7 | 0% |
| 20 | Holbrook Suffolk | B+ | 1.1 | 74% | 2.7 | 52% |
| 21 | Banwell Somerset | B+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2 | 38% |
| 22 | Yarnfield Staffordshire | B | 6.6 | 100% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 23 | Longtown Cumbria | B | 4.3 | 100% | 0.1 | 0% |
| 24 | Wheelock Cheshire | B | 2.4 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 25 | Trowell Nottinghamshire | B | 7.7 | 56% | 4.5 | 0% |
| 26 | Evercreech Somerset | B | 3.5 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 27 | Rayne Essex | B− | 4.3 | 64% | 4 | 0% |
| 28 | Resolven West Glamorgan | B− | 2.4 | 100% | 2.3 | 0% |
| 29 | East Peckham Kent | B− | 14.5 | 66% | 2 | 1% |
| 30 | Hutton Lancashire | B− | 6.6 | 90% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 31 | Swanton Morley Norfolk | C+ | 3.5 | 94% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 32 | Burgh le Marsh Lincolnshire | C+ | 3.2 | 74% | 1.3 | 7% |
| 33 | Hook Norton Oxfordshire | C+ | 2 | 70% | 2 | 28% |
| 34 | Luddenden Foot West Yorkshire | C+ | 2.2 | 68% | 3.9 | 0% |
| 35 | Machynlleth Powys | C+ | 2.6 | 45% | 2 | 29% |
| 36 | Huncote Leicestershire | C+ | 0.8 | 100% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 37 | Trimsaran Dyfed | C | 2.4 | 31% | 1 | 2% |
| 38 | Linton Derbyshire | C | 1.8 | 76% | 3.2 | 0% |
| 39 | Mitcheldean Gloucestershire | C | 1.5 | 80% | 1.9 | 1% |
| 40 | Barwick in Elmet West Yorkshire | C | 1.5 | 87% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 41 | Llanidloes Powys | C | 2.4 | 89% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 42 | Aspatria Cumbria | C− | 3.1 | 60% | 0.8 | 1% |
| 43 | Great Blakenham Suffolk | C− | 3.6 | 70% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 44 | Rudgwick West Sussex | C− | 2.5 | 16% | 3.1 | 0% |
| 45 | Meriden West Midlands | C− | 1.8 | 70% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 46 | Lanner Cornwall | C− | 1.3 | 65% | 3.6 | 0% |
| 47 | Hatfield Woodhouse South Yorkshire | C− | 0.6 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 48 | Long Bennington Lincolnshire | C− | 1.6 | 82% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 49 | Underwood Gwent | C− | 1.9 | 87% | 1 | 0% |
| 50 | Wickham Hampshire | D | 0.8 | 26% | 2 | 13% |
| 51 | Thurlby Lincolnshire | D | 1.3 | 54% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 52 | Morton Lincolnshire | D | 0.2 | 28% | 3 | 0% |
| 53 | Mattishall Norfolk | D− | 1.4 | 58% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 54 | Misterton Nottinghamshire | D− | 1.4 | 47% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 55 | Billinghay Lincolnshire | D− | 1.8 | 41% | 0.7 | 0% |
| 56 | Bozeat Northamptonshire | D− | 1.3 | 13% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 57 | Shenstone Staffordshire | D− | 1 | 55% | 1 | 0% |
| 58 | Cilfrew West Glamorgan | D− | 0.8 | 44% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 59 | Aslockton Nottinghamshire | D− | 1 | 11% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 60 | Ipplepen Devon | D− | 0.8 | 42% | 1.1 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Wickham’s built-up area.
3 in 10 Wickham residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 1,600 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 7 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 310 residents.
National Parks and National Landscapes around Wickham
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
13% of the land within 5 km of Wickham is National Park or National Landscape, more than 72% of UK towns. South Downs National Park covers 1,653 km² and has been a National Park since 2010.
1 waymarked walk passes through or near Wickham
25 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Wickham and the kilometre around it, 2.0 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
The regional route here is the Pilgrims' Trail.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Wickham: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.4 | 9.9 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.5 | 16.5 | 16.1 | 14.5 | 12.5 | 10.6 | 8.8 | 8.0 |
| High (°C) | 8 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 9 |
| Rain (mm) | 95 | 67 | 60 | 59 | 50 | 61 | 59 | 70 | 69 | 101 | 107 | 105 |
May is the driest month (50 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 22 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 107 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 41 nights a year. The climate in Wickham →
7 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Wickham is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Up high. Fiddlers Green, at 50 m, is the highest named top within 2 km of Wickham.
Every named place, with directions
Hills and peaks 3
Playgrounds 7
Plus 7 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wickham | D | 0.8 | 26% | 13% |
| Knowle 1.5 mi | A− | 2.0 | 100% | 7% |
| Waltham Chase 2.5 mi | B− | 2.0 | 75% | 39% |
| Swanmore 2.9 mi | C | 1.4 | 69% | 54% |
| Fareham 3.1 mi | B | 1.1 | 48% | 2% |
| Whiteley 3.2 mi | A− | 3.0 | 52% | 2% |
| Bishop's Waltham 4.0 mi | A | 2.6 | 93% | 55% |
Bishop's Waltham, 4 miles away, grades A, the best next door: 93% of its residents live within 400 m of a park. Knowle, Waltham Chase and Whiteley have at least twice Wickham’s green space per resident.
Questions about the outdoors in Wickham
Is Wickham near a National Park?
South Downs National Park reaches the edge of Wickham. It covers 1,653 km² and has been a National Park since 2010.
What are the best walks near Wickham?
1 waymarked walking route passes within 2 km of the village, including the Pilgrims' Trail.
What is the nearest beach to Wickham?
Hill Head Beach, 5.6 mi from the edge of the village, then Calshot Beach (7.0 mi). Wickham itself is inland.
How many people in Wickham live near a park?
26% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Wickham?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Wickham good for walking?
Paths are thinner than most towns: 2.0 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 31% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 8% (0.8 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Wickham’s overall grade.
Where Wickham’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.