Length: 9.4 miles
Toughness: 4 out of 10
I’ve chosen to do this option in reverse as
a) it is mostly downhill and
b) it ends at a station with an all day pub
LUNCH. Choice of two cafes at Newlands Corner, about halfway through the walk
Or The Newlands Cafe
TRAINS Take the 10.03 from Waterloo (destination Guildford) passing Clapham Junction at 10.12 and reaching Horsley at 10.52
Return trains to Waterloo at 15.07 and 16.07, and to London Bridge at 16.16
A day return to Chilworth should cover the journey.
DIRECTIONS l=swc.131.e
2 comments:
I didn’t count, not expecting to write this report, but I think about n=18 on this walk. A w=grey day, but it did not feel as cold as expected, at least once we started walking.
It was interesting for me, the author of the walk, to do it in this direction. I rather smiled at the description of it being “mostly downhill”, because of course to come down you first have to have gone up. But the uphill was quite gentle and nearly all in the first part of the walk.
Near the start we did a bit of a short cut past Horsley Place (home of Grange Park Opera): a nice alternative, perhaps superior to the specified route. In general on the walk paths were not too muddy, though there were a few gloopy spots. A good choice for a winter outing.
I am the wrong person to do this report because at Newlands Corner I and two companions went to the Plucky Pheasant cafe for lunch, thus losing contact with the rest of the group, who presumably had sandwiches as is the Midweek walk custom. The cafe is a large place (due to a tent extension) and popular. A menu of burgers and light lunches, but the food was tasty and the service prompt and cheerful.
After lunch I proposed taking one of the alternative routes along the top of Newlands Down to St Martha’s Hill. The intention thus far was then to descend to Chilworth and join the others in the pub there. But once we got to the shoulder of St Martha’s, I suggested to my companions, who had an evening engagement and did not want to be late back, that it was only an hour’s walk to Guildford over Pewley Down, and this we did, getting a train there at about 3.45pm. I thought this made a nice ending to the walk and would recommend it to anyone else doing the walk in this direction.
The rest of us had drinks ranging from coffees, tea, mulled wine, to the tasty and local produced Shere Drop in the welcoming warmth of the Percy Arms. Just in time we crossed the road, dodged the descending barriers, and were whisked off to Guildford on the 15.07 train.
With a two minute gap, we crossed platforms and caught a fast train to Waterloo, arriving in the Metropolis while there was still light. A hopeful sign of the season’s turning.
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