9.24 train from Waterloo (9.31 Clapham Junction) to Ash Vale, arriving 10.14.
If you just miss this, get the 9.30 train to Woking, arriving 9.54, to connect to the above train departing 10.00.
Buy a day return to Ash Vale.
For a pub lunch the choice seems to be the Royal Oak in Pirbright after 7.2 miles, which does food all afternoon. It is described in the walk notes as popular, but many such pubs have been less busy recently. Otherwise the White Lyon and Dragon, 9.6 miles into the walk has now closed, and I can’t tell from its website if the nearby Worplesdon Place Hotel is a pub or all posh and high falutin’.
The main walk route has no tea stop, but a recommended short (0.5km) diversion is provided - in the walk directions at least: I am not sure it is included on the GPX - to the pleasantly rural Jolly Farmer pub, situated in the middle of nowhere on the edge of Whitmoor Common. The slight downside is that the 1 mile or so walk to the station from the pub includes a stretch along a modestly busy road. Allow 25 minutes to get to the station to be on the safe side. If aiming for the 6.40 train or later a torch is recommended.
Trains back from Worplesdon are at 40 past the hour
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Despite having posted this walk, I was not sure what to expect. It is a long while since I did it and then, I think, it was in winter. But autumn really suits this walk, the w=golden-October-sun slanting through the trees, flecks of leaf colours, and - particularly in the afternoon - lots of fungi of diverse types, which I wish I could identify. (Fly agaric, puffballs…but what were the others?)
We were 8 at the station and no one joined us later or popped up en route, so n=8 it was. Five of us ate in the garden of the Royal Oak pub - it was warm enough when the sun shone, though there were a few clouds and one disobliging sprinkle of raindrops. The food met with general approval and came pretty quickly. Like so many pubs with a former reputation for being popular, it was not busy at all in these straitened times.
After lunch a nice variety of scenery - fungi-filled woods, some fields, a strange deserted complex on the edge of Worplesdon village which we eventually decided was a college of some kind. Just before this we had a sit down in the sun for a while - a forgotten tradition of SWC walks that could do with a revival.
There is supposedly a hotel in Worplesdon village where we might have tried to get tea if we had ever managed to find it. But we were out the other side before we realised we had not done so. Given this, all but one of us opted to do the diversion to the Jolly Farmer pub for tea (only one had beer) in its charming garden.
Two then braved the road on the direct route to the station. The rest of us returned to the main walk route - which involved an almost identical stretch down an identically busy road. I would have thought that it would make sense to make the diversion to the Jolly Farmer the standard ending. Certainly that is what I will do in future. (Note to anyone planning to do this walk in June or July: Whitmoor Common and its woods is a good place for butterflies at that time of year).
The last bit down a quiet lane to the station was very pleasant and we were in good time for the 5.40pm train. All in all a satisfactory way to fill a Saturday and a walk that should be done more often.
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