The “hangers” are alight. It’s as if Bonfire Night has come a week early to the steep wooded scarps that run between Alton and Petersfield. Hampshire, England - not New Hampshire, New England, mind - on one of the very last days of October, and the autumn colours are proving every inch a match for those of the vaunted American fall.

Leaf-peeping. So what if our transatlantic cousins invented the term? The fact is, we Brits were admiring the autumn foliage of our own fine woods before our colony even showed as a glint from the crow’s nest of the Mayflower. We knew then, just as we do now, that there’s nothing like sticking two fingers up at approaching winter by glorying in autumn’s lemon yellows, russets, oranges and reds. And what better way than on an invigorating walk?

Timing is important to catch the show at its autumn peak. The main factors are weather and location, with Scottish uplands turning well before southern lowlands. Remember, too, that there’s a tree sequence; horse chestnuts open the show while ash trees tend to bring the curtain down. And, just as there are letdowns, like the scruffy sycamore, so there are also star turns, none more so than the beech.

Which is what has brought me to the splendid beechwoods along the Hangers Way. I’m off on a long walk along the main stretch of this 21-mile waymarked trail - commuter country’s best-kept secret - which runs south of the M3 towards the South Downs.

Britain's best posh pubs with rooms

New style of pub: cosier than a hotel, cheaper than a guesthouse

• Britain’s best restaurants with rooms

• Europe's 20 best hotels under €100

12 great madcap British weekends

The range of summer activities Britain boasts is inspired, and occasionally baffling - here's the pick

Five perfect minibreaks in Britain

Boutique bolt holes, meadowy picnics, wild walk - the best of both worlds on small-town weekenders

• 12 great madcap British weekends

Related Internet Links

• Read more in our Best of Britain section

Related Links

• Six of the best breaks for autumn colours

What this undulating trail does so well is follow the seam where rising woods meet rolling farmland, which means that, rather than choose between woodland scenes or great open views, you simply have to turn your head. And the pick of the seasons is the autumn.

It was, after all, a day like this in nearby Winchester - still, bright, touched with chill - that inspired John Keats to write To Autumn. As I pass leaf-littered ponds, oast houses, old hop orchards and woods all bright with their golden bunting, I have to confess that I’m all oded up.

The dappled Oakhanger stream leads me past the church and into the village of Selborne, home to another great champion of natural Britain. The rambling house of the 18th-century naturalist and parson Gilbert White, lying right on the Hangers Way, proves the perfect contemplative stop. I take in the original manuscripts, family portraits and cases containing study specimens in the period furnished rooms.

I wander the extensive gardens and admire the surrounding hangers of beech, “the loveliest of all forest trees” in White’s considered judgment. Then, after refuelling on warming soup, a nourishing date and walnut slice and slaking pots of tea at what one visitor describes as the house’s “proper English tea shop”, it is time to push on.

Noar Hill, which lost its high woods to the Great Storm of 1987, rises ahead of me. Many trees still lie where they have fallen, their vertical bases hemming the path with walls of soil and root. Twenty years on, however, it feels less like a tragedy than part of the natural process, with a new generation of trees rising to plug the canopy holes. All around, vigorous saplings celebrate their first two decades with a rare display of sun-dappled rust and gold.

The light is weak by the time I climb Shoulder of Mutton Hill, with its memorial to the poet Edward Thomas, who also loved these wooded chalk hills. A fox leads the way down to Lutcombe Bottom before its own tones melt into the foliage. A chill wind plucks a cloud of brittle leaves and sends them fluttering past the village church at Steep.

I stop to admire the mountain of wooden pallets that awaits November 5 in the field opposite. “Want it for the Tate?” a villager asks. I agree it would make quite a display. But not like the one I’ve been enjoying all day. Details: the Hangers Way runs from Alton railway station to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Petersfield; pick up a route leaflet at Petersfield tourist office (01730 268829). It is covered by OS Explorer maps 133 and 120.

Gilbert White’s House (01420 511275, www.gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk ) is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am-5pm; £6.50.

Times recommends

• The Green Spaces Travel Awards, 2008 - the winners
• Britain's 12 best winter walks
• The insiders' guide to bohemian Paris