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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.

Wednesday 26 October 2016

Wednesday Walk: Book 1, Walk 42 - Holmwood to Gomshall

Leith Tower, its woodlands and its heathlands

Book 1, Walk 42 - Holmwood to Gomshall (with optional extension to Guildford)

Length: Holmwood to Gomshall: 16.7 km (10.4 miles)
             Gomshall to Guildford (reversing part of  Book 2, Walk 13):  10.4 km (6.5 miles)
Toughness: 6 out of 10

Travel
London Victoria: 09-31 hrs (Horsham train)
Arrive Holmwood: 10-32 hrs

Gomshall: 15-53 hrs via Guildford to Waterloo
                   16-04 hrs via Redhill to London Bridge or Victoria
                   16-53 hrs via Guildford
                   17-06 hrs  via Redhill

Gomshall to Guildford by No 32 bus (from outside the Compasses pub): 15-19; 16-30; 17-01 & 18-15. Journey time about 26 mins.

Guildford to London Waterloo: frequent fast trains.

Rail ticket: suggest a day return to Gomshall all routes permitted, which covers return journeys via Redhill or Guildford. In theory you will also require a single from Dorking to Holmwood, but I have never been asked for this.

Today's walk posting assumes Southern will behave themselves today and not cancel the suggested train.

I suggest we start today's walk using the alternative start, before we climb up Leith Hill with its tower, where (if open) we take elevenses before continuing on the morning leg of the walk.

Now - pre-empting anonymous moaners over the early start (before 10 am), the cost of the rail ticket is not expensive today and the start time as recommended in the TO Book will permit those amongst us who wish to walk long today - on to Guildford - to do so in daylight.

The lunch stop is the Stephan Langton Inn in Friday Street, or a little later in the walk, the Wotton Hatch in Wotton.  Tea can be taken in Abinger Hammer at the Tea Rooms or at the Compasses Inn in Gomshall. On arrival in Gomshall, those walkers still with petrol in the tank may wish to carry on to Guildford, over the hills and far away, reversing the Book 2 walk - Guildford to Gomshall. With clocks going back four days later, this will be the last chance for SWC walkers to go long for many a month.

Trains from Gomshall back to London are infreqent and if you just miss one, rather than wait for the next you may prefer to take the No 32 bus outside the Compasses Inn to Guildford bus Station, a short walk from the railway station.

There should be the start of some leaf colour in the woods today which should add to the enjoyment of this lovely walk.

T=1.42
L=1.42


Next week: Wednesday 02 November: SWC 191a - Haddenham Circular (excluding Brill)



5 comments:

Marc Ricketts said...

Now I might do the Walk on Wednesday. But I can't Guarantee I will. But when we stop at a Pub Restaurant. How much are the prices?

Anonymous said...

There is a sample lunch menu on this website: http://stephanlangton.pub/menu/

Anonymous said...

thanks but too early for me

Sarah H said...

Angela - I got the authors wrong. I meant to say Challacombe, Oldfield and Salkovkis. You should find it.

Walker said...

N=13.5 on this walk, the 0.5 being the "walks inspector" who joined us for lunch and most of the afternoon. A pleasant mild day with w=quite-a-bit-of-sun. Good autumn colours but no noticeable advance on last week. The tea kiosk on Leith Hill was open and there was a very distant view of the sea sparkling through Shoreham Gap as some of us had a cuppa. Five of us (plus walks inspector) ate in the not at all busy Stephan Langton so I guess others had sarnies or ate elsewhere. We got to Gomshall rather too early - 3pm or so - and I hear four at least went on to make it a 16 miler by carrying on to Guildford. So in fact did two more of us, one of whom (me) had not intended to be so heroic. But with an extravagant hour and a half of daylight still to go when we set off at 4.30, it seemed a shame not to make the most of it. We got to St Martha's Hill for a soft and lovely dusk and did the last bit over Pewley Down in the dark. Then tapas, wine and home.