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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.

Monday 28 August 2017

Wealden lanes and wooded valleys and tea in the grounds of Burrswood NHS Hospital

Walk 236b – Ashurst Circular

Length: Around 16 km (9.9 miles). Toughness: 4/10

10:09 Ashurst train from London Bridge (10:23 East Croydon), arriving Ashurst at 10:58
Buy a return to Ashurst.


Trains back are at 55 past the hour.


Click on Option B Circular Walk, returning to Ashurst to print only the directions for this walk. If you want a longer walk, you could follow the main walk directions to Eridge 21 km (13.0 miles).

From a remote station this walk climbs up the low hills between the River Medway and Tunbridge Wells, soon with some attractive views across a steep-sided open hillside reminiscent of wilder parts of Britain. A gently undulating route along field edges, country lanes and wooded valleys takes you to the village of Speldhurst where the parish church of St Mary the Virgin contains a set of notable pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows.

As it's Bank Holiday Monday, pubs are likely to be busy so please give them a courtesy call from the station. The suggested lunch stop, therefore, is the highly-rated 16thC inn at Speldhurst, George & Dragon (01892-863125).  An earlier lunch might be possible at the Chafford Arms (01892-731731) in Fordcombe, but it's fairly small and unsuitable for large groups. 

After lunch, the walk loops back towards the Burrswood estate, situated in a wooded valley. Its 19thC manor house is now a small NHS hospital, with walkers being encouraged to use the permissive paths through its grounds. Don't miss the Burrswood Tea room (01892-865991), set in the NHS Hospital. It's open daily to 4.30pm (5.30pm summer Sundays) as there is nothing near Ashurst station.

T=3.236.b




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

n=14 including Mr. Squash! w=calm_still_hot_day. A perfect walk for today's weather conditions and this time of year and all dry underfoot. A nice balance of open stretches and woodland and some wonderful views, especially on the morning section. It always seemed that just when we were getting hot that there was a stretch of very nice woodland to cool us down. At Spedhurst,we sat in the pub garden for lunch. It wasn't too busy and food arrived quickly. Later we had tea in the grounds of Burrswood, overlooking the beautiful view. Most took the train back from Ashurst, with two going on to do the long walk to Eridge.