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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 22 March 2017

Wednesday Walk - Haslemere to Midhurst (via Midhurst Way)

Length: 15.6 km (9.7 mi) [longer and nicer if finishing through Midhurst’s centre]
Ascent/Descent: 303/416m; Net Walking Time: 4 hours
Toughness:  4/10                       

Take the 10.00 Portsmouth Harbour train from Waterloo (10.25 Woking, 10.34 G’ford), arrives Haslemere 10.48. From Clappingham Junction take the 09.52 stopping service (arrives H’mere 10.45).
Return to Haslemere from Midhurst either by bus number 70 (roughly hourly, £4.90 fare in 2016, last dep. 19.05) or by taxi.
Return trains from Haslemere are on xx.02 (last at 21.02), xx.15, xx.32 (last at 21.32) and xx.39 (last at 19.39), journey time from 48 to 66 mins.

This walk is the northerly portion of The Midhurst Way, created by John Trueman, a local walker, whose skeletal directions have made it onto our website. It is neither signposted nor waymarked, so more or less map-led. I will aim to take more detailed directions today to produce a full write-up in the near future (the southerly part, SWC 217, is also currently being written up).

The route leaves Haslemere via Marley Common - a similar route to TOCW1's Haslemere Circular Walk. However, after the Red Lion pub at Fernhurst, it continues south through a mix of quiet forests with nice views, to Henley and the Duke of Cumberland Arms pub. Finally it enters Midhurst via Easebourne village and Cowdray Park. Return to Haslemere station is by bus.
For the recommended finish through Midhurst’s town centre, print out the last page of the pdf of SWC 48.

Lunch: The Red Lion  in Fernhurst (6.5 km/4.1 mi), or The Duke of Cumberland Arms  in Henley (9.9 km/6.2 mi, food to 14.00).
Tea: lots of choice in Midhurst, recommended are Cowdray Farm Shop & Cafe (1.3 km from the end), or – on a diversion through the town centre Garton’s Coffee House, The Wheatsheaf, The Angel Inn and The Olive & Vine.

The Midhurst Way’s website seems to be no more, but you find all necessary information, incl. a summary, map, height profile, minimal walk directions and gpx/kml files here. T=swc.218
Next Week: SWC 18 Petersfield to Rowlands Castle

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

9.7m for a Thomas walk - is this just the pre-lunch warm up??? Hardly worth getting out of bed for...

Thomas G said...

Indeed. The keen ones save the bus fare and walk back to H'mere...

Andrew said...

There's a £2.50 nightrider fare on the 7.05 bus back from Midhurst to Haslemere (or even Guildford) station. The normal fare is £5.

Thomas G said...

Plan A was to lunch in Henley, walk to Cowdray, take tea there and return to Hmere to have taped directions for both ways. That went out the window when the train picked up 80 mins worth of delays on its scheduled 48 mins journey (signalling problems at Esher, still ongoing). So Plan B was lunch in Fernhurst and the bus back from Midhurst, as posted. This is what we did, the n=2 of us. The good part of the delays was that the rain fronts had moved through by the time we started the walk, so it was w=dry-all-walk-with-some-sunny-breaks.
Nice walk, good lunch, good beer, early finish, bus on time, fast train cancelled, now on the stopping service to The Smoke.