Length: including the alternative Pewley Down start, 20km (12.4 miles) if going via the lunch pub in Aldbury, 16.7km (10.4 miles) if doing the Newlands Down shortcut. T=swc.131
9.45 train from Waterloo (9.53 Clapham Junction) to Guildford, arriving 10.24.
Buy a day return to Guildford
This walk often seems to get done in winter or autumn, but it actually makes a varied summer outing, having several fine downland sections, interspersed with shady woodlands. The downland bits have fine views and should now have lots of flowers and butterflies.
I am going to suggest today doing the alternative Pewley Down start (option b: the start of the Guildford to Gomshall walk, basically) because this is a lovely route out of Guildford and gets us into the downland mood right from the off.
Since this puts you up onto the North Downs ridge, you might be tempted to stay on it and do the Newlands Down shortcut too. This takes you along a lovely grassy ridge, with fine views and potentially good flowers and butterflies. This option cuts out the lunch pub in Aldbury (and the descent to it and climb up from it), but at Newlands Corner you have both a kiosk serving hot food (burgers and chips etc) and the Plucky Pheasant cafe (or whatever it calls itself these days...), which does full meals (with alcohol) if you can get a table there. Newlands Corner is also a gorgeous picnic site.
Tea options later in the walk may or may not include a pop-up van in the woods about 1.6 miles after Newlands Corner. Not mentioned in the walk directions (at least yet...) is that West Horsley Place also has a pop-up cafe set in a nice courtyard, though it is only open till 4pm. To reach it, turn right on the main road at Horsley church, then left up a track, which brings you to the heart of the West Horsley Place complex. After tea you can follow another track up to the railway line near Horsley.
Otherwise the normal walk route takes you close to the Barley Mow pub, 1.3km from the end of the walk and open all afternoon. Horsley, at the end of the walk, does not have a pub, but its Quaich cafe is open till 5pm and there is a Sainsbury local if you want to buy "supplies" for the train.
Trains back from Horsley are at 18, 48 and 58 past, with the 58 being slightly slower (57 minutes v 49 minutes).
2 comments:
https://lameridiana.co.uk/ is an interesting Italian restaurant opposite Horsley station for an early dinner. Back at the Opera House, they'll be serving Champagne and canapes from 3pm with Madame Buttrerfly starting at 5pm. Seats still available starting at £90.
N=15 on this walk, on a day of w=cloud-and-intermittent-light-rain. Better than a heatwave, I suppose, though it meant that we passed through several top notch butterfly sites without seeing a single one. Wildflowers were in abundance, however, especially on the downs and also in places in woodland clearings, and if it had been sunny the mix of shade and open sections would have been perfect.
The group seemed happy to accept my suggestion of doing the Pewley Down start and Newlands shortcut: if anyone did anything else, I am not aware of it. We got to lunch at Newlands Corner only a little after midday, but were a bit strung out by this point: four of us went to the Plucky Pheasant cafe, but I understand one person who would have gone there was not aware that it was across the road. Presumably others picnicked, though it was a bit showery at this point.
Anyhow, four of us ate at the cafe. Its menu mostly consisted of toasted sandwiches and burgers, but the latter were very inventive, the beetroot (etc) veggie burger being especially tasty. The young serving staff were enthusiastic and efficient. I was not surprised the place was busy.
Four joined us for drinks, so we were eight in the afternoon. A fairly cracking pace was set. The tea van in the woods is still there but we sped by it despite my entreaties. Some tried to find the Horsley Place pop-up cafe I mentioned in the walk post, but only I was successful. (I will add directions and a GPX to the walk route). The others ended up in La Meridiana, the Italian restaurant opposite the station approach in Horsley, which has set up some outside tables and serves both hot and alcoholic drinks.
We got the 4.18 train - sadly one of the old ones, not the new stock which is finally entering service after a delay of five years. We got to Waterloo at 5.07pm - a bit early really, but some, recently returned from a long sojourn Down Under, had social lives to go to….
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