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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Friday 25 March 2016

Good Friday Walk - A sleepy corner of Surrey/Sussex

Book 1, walk 47 - Ockley to Warnham
Length: 16.5km (10.3 miles)
Toughness: 3 out of 10

9.26 train from London Bridge (not Victoria due to engineering works) calling 10.01 at Sutton, and arriving 10.38 at Ockley

Buy a day return to Warnham.

For walk directions click here.

We had a request for this pleasant rural walk, in "a sleepy corner on the Surrey-Sussex border where it seems nothing exceptional has happened through the ages": the request said "on a Saturday", but Good Friday is a kind of Saturday. In fact it is a Saturday for train timetable purposes, which is useful for this walk which has no Sunday or bank holiday train service.

Since this is a sleepy corner, there is not much to say about the route except that it has woods and fields and pastures and two pubs for lunch, one of which will hopefully have room for us (Good Friday has the advantage that people feel the whole Easter weekend is ahead of them and usually have not geared up yet to go for outings: I have traditionally found it a quiet day in the countryside). There may very well be some nice wood anemone woods (see photo): I can't say for certain because I have never tried this walk at this time of year, but this is the right kind of territory for them.

One disadvantage of this walk is that the last train back from Warnham is at 18.24 (before that they are hourly at 24 past). That is another reason to pick this walk today, because once the clocks go forward (tomorrow!) it is a bit irritating to have to go back to town so early. If you misjudge, there is an 18.44 train southbound to Horsham and you can get a train home from there. But your Warnham return will probably not be valid via this route.


4 comments:

Marion said...

In case anyone else is snookered by engineering works I intend the following journey suggested by TFL. Any other options gratefully received as there's no trains to CJ via Barnes.

Bus 267 to catch 9.06 Twickenham to Raynes Park
9.43 Raynes Park to Dorking
10.27 Dorking to Ockley
10.38 ETA

Paul said...

Paul (Porky) Nationalrail offer the 18.44 journey via Horsham as a return at the same price so should be no problem...but please check

Marion said...

Not going on this walk now. Too many logistics issues with the rail journey. Will go with Thomas option to Thame.

Walker said...

n=32 including one late starter who caught us at lunch. A heavenly day of w=warm-sunshine-and-blue-skies. Lots of signs of spring, including hearing the first chiffchaff of the year (first migrant bird to arrive from Africa) and covering nine daisies with one foot (old country saying says it is not spring until you do). Oodles and oodles of bluebell woods, but only the very occasional bluebell flower. Some wood anemones, lots of primroses, daffodils, celandines.

The group got split up, but about half, I think, lunched at the Scarlett Arms. Yet another pub that replaces "order at the bar" with "order drinks at the bar, wait for us to take orders at the table, then pay at the bar". Time and motion studies should be compulsory for publicans! Also no garden, which was painful on a sunny day. But to be fair, the food was nice when it came and we were only in there for just over an hour, which is not too bad.

There was a lot of mud in places, due to low-lying fields and squelchy bridleways: interestingly the arable fields at the end were bone dry, however. A glorious tea in the garden of the pub in Warnham - big pots, scrummy deserts.

Most got the 17.24, I think. Two of us walked into Horsham - a much nicer route than you would think from looking at the map, including an interesting wildfowl lake. We ended up on the 18.20 which is also the last train stopping at Warnham, but didn't see any other walkers get on that.

Wind and rain for the rest of the weekend, they say. Heigh-ho. But at least Et in Arcadia Ego