Extra Walk 274 – Dorking Circular
Length: 18¾ km (11.7 miles), with shorter and longer options. Toughness: 6/10
10:02 Dorking train from Waterloo (Vauxhall 10:07, Clapham Jct 10:13, etc), arriving Dorking (Main) at 10:53. If there's a problem with this train and you can get to Clapham Junction by 10:18, you could take a Southern service to Dorking (on a different line), arriving at 11:09.
Dorking (Main) has an hourly South West Train service to Waterloo at xx:07 and Southern services to Victoria at xx:15 & xx:45. There is also an hourly Great Western service from Dorking Deepdene at xx:19 if you want to return this way (changing at Redhill for Victoria).
This walk takes in the area to the west of Dorking, with a long stretch along the chalky hillside of the North Downs in the morning and a more wooded section back across the Greensand Hills in the afternoon. If you want a pub lunch I reckon your best chance is shortly before 1pm at the Wotton Hatch, but all the pubs on the walk route could well be fully booked on a Sunday and you might prefer to have a picnic lunch by the picturesque Hammer Pond at Friday Street. The end of the walk is through Dorking town centre where there are plenty of refreshment places (and although it's likely to be closed by the time you get there, any Americans might like to seek out Mullins Coffee Shop).
You'll need to print the directions from the Dorking Circular Walk page. You can reduce the number of pages printed by clicking the 'Main Walk' option, or print the whole document if you think you might want to switch to the shorter or longer option. T=swc.274
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3 comments:
Anyone doing this walk pls?
Probably n=10
7 off the train, one of whom vanished inside the station. Plenty of chalkland flowers as we came through Denbies Hillside. The Wotton Hatch was packed – whatever happened to the down to earth boozer I first visited many years ago? Gone the way of the Ploughman's Lunch, that's what.On to the Stephan Langton, where I arrived too late to witness any food consumption, but I did come across the other four walkers, finishing off their coffee and looking very replete. These, the Langton Four, had remarkably clean boots for people who claimed to have been walking. And so back to Dorking. The four soon vanished – back to their cars no doubt! Leaving me to deal with the menacing black labrador at Squires Farm all by myself. This free-range beast‘s forte is snarling , teeth baring, lunging and backing off. And again. No actual biting so maybe my “nice doggy” strategy does work. I didn’t try patting it to find out. When I got nearer Dorking I realised that the bits in italics were easy options allowing me to avoid the final hilly bits. (Did them last year, no need to do them again). W=cloudy-with-some-light-rain-and-occasional-glimpses-of-the-sun
Maybe it's too late to add anything to Ian's excellent report, but one of the "Langton 4" joined three of the initial group for the full afternoon walk, including an encounter with the snarly dog. We only found Costa open for tea in Dorking, but all in all a most enjoyable day in varied countryside.
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