Saturday Walk - Weald, bluebells, a garden tea room

SWC walk 225 - Wivelsfield to Hayward's Heath
Length: 18km (11.2 miles) - or 14.8km (9.2 miles) with shortcuts
Toughness: 5 out of 10

9.40 (Brighton-bound) train from St Pancras Thameslink or 9.51 from Blackfriars (10.19 East Croydon) to Wivelsfield, arriving 10.53

OR catch the 9.53 (Hastings-bound) train from London Bridge and change at East Croydon (arrive 10.10, depart 10.19) for the above train

Buy a day return to Wivelsfield.

For walk directions click here.

Bluebells are definitely coming out. Whether they will be at their best this weekend I rather doubt, but there certainly is a chance of some good displays.

This walk has never previously been done as a bluebell walk, I think, but I noted several good potential sites for them when we did it in late March 2016, both near the start and just after lunch. There were also some wood anemone woods - starting to fade now but hopefully not yet gone entirely.

For lunch Cuckfield offers several options, but last year we found the "unprepossessing" White Harte a bit of a 1970s timewarp, with cuisine to match. The "relatively expensive" Talbot might therefore be worthing looking at, or one of the town's tea rooms

Otherwise this is a gentle and varied Wealden walk, with the added bonus of a nice tea stop - a cafe next to Borde Hill Gardens, which you may also care to visit and which are open till 6pm. The last section is through woods (which should have lovely fresh greenery) to the centre of Hayward's Heath. - disappointingly suburban, but with very frequent trains (every 10-15 minutes) up to London.
T=3.225