Backup Only

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 23 November 2016

Wednesday Walk - The North Downs: Wye Circular

Length: 17.7 km (11.0 mi)
Ascent/Descent:  395 m; Net Walking Time: ca. 4 ½ hours
Toughness:  5 out of 10 

Take the 10.08 train to Margate from St. Pancras, (10.15 Stratford I’nal), change at Ashford (arr. 10.46, dep. 11.05) arriving Wye at 11.11.
The train you are changing on to is the 09.22 from Victoria to Canterbury West.
Return trains: xx.21 hours to Victoria, xx.51/2/3 to Charing X (shave off 30-40 mins in each case by changing at Ashford onto a High Speed train to St. Pancras). 

This walk goes high up on the Crundale Downs (“crun” in Old English meant chalk, and ‘dala’ meant dell or valley), with breathtaking views. The walk comes to an isolated Norman church at Crundale, then on to a fifteenth century inn for lunch. The walk then passes Crundale House and the manor of Olantigh, crosses the River Great Stour and returns to Wye through its churchyard, for tea at a teashop at the bottom of Church Street or at a pub next to the railway station.

Lunch will be at The Compasses Inn in Crundale (8.8 km, food to 14.30). A table has been booked for 13.15 hours.

For walk directions, map, height profile, and gpx/kml files click here.

Next Week: SWC 44  Didcot Circular  22.1 km/13.8 mi, 3/10 rating.
T=1.53

1 comment:

Thomas G said...

12 walkers off the HS1-train at Ashford, who decided to rather take an imminent (delayed) train than waiting for the posted train from Victoria, getting us to Wye 10 minutes earlier than expected. 1 then waited at Wye for possible walkers off that Victoria train (in vain), while all else sped off.
2 other walkers had indeed tried to catch that Victoria train, but missed, so we learned later. They were therefore an hour behind (and later skipped the lunch pub and the out-and-back to it, so were only caught by the main group a few minutes before Wye).
So n=14 in total in w=dry conditions.
Some of the many field crossings in the last quarter of the walk were a bit soggy after the recent rains, else a very fine walk, with plenty of quiet valleys and splendid views off the Downs.
75 minutes for lunch at the glorious Compasses Inn with its two fireplaces (some had 3 courses...) and a 10 minute delay in the afternoon caused by a very large herd of sheep being herded down the very lane we had to go up (let's just say they were not very co-operative), meant we only got to the Tickled Trout by the station at 16.35, to find it had winter opening hours (shut until 17.00)!
So 5 went back up into the village to the King's Head for a bevvie, which proved to be a very good choice. Do we have/can we concoct a walk that has this pub as a lunch destination?
A bottle of Rioja was purchased at the Co-Op by the SWC-Provisions Manager for the long journey back...