Length: 16km (10m) or 20km (12.5m)
Toughness: 3 / 10
Transport: Take the 9:41 train from London Victoria (9:48 Clapham Junction) to Ockley, arriving at 10:51. Return trains from Warnham at xx:57 via Horsham or xx:19 direct. Return trains from Horsham aplenty. Buy a day return to Horsham.
This is a pleasant walk through the Sussex countryside crossing extensive woodlands, a mysterious church in the middle of the woods (nice picnic spot !) and a lovely pub. I'm sure you will see some of those seasonal bluish flowers .... If you want to finish the walk in Warnham, note, that it is a 15-20mins walk from the Sussex Oak to the station.
You can extend the walk to Horsham passing the Warnham Nature Reserve. The obligatory pub in Horsham is the Black Jug.
2 comments:
This walk is good for bluebells, wood anemones and all sorts of seasonal flowers: also probably some hornbeam woods showing fresh green foliage colours
A rather select 5 alighted at Ockley. Our poster had texted he would be late due to a cancelled connecting train, but he caught us up at lunch. Another walker started TWO hours late, but intercepted us just after lunch: an impressive feat. So N=7 in all.
It was a day of two halves weather-wise. Cloudy in the morning but w=sunny-and-breezy-in-the-afternoon. The sun was just breaking through as we got to the Scarlett Arms and this enticed four of us to display classic British optimism and eat outside. The other two (born overseas….) ate inside at a table that had been booked by the two hour latecomer (who had to abandon any chance of lunch to catch us up). The outsiders had to endure a bit of cloud and add layers to keep warm, telling each other they weren’t cold really, but eventually the sun won out. The pub was reasonably busy but not madly so.
This is a lovely walk at this stage of spring and there was much for the ardent botanist to enjoy. In particular bluebells were in view for nearly the whole walk, not quite full out, maybe, but still very impressive. The wood anemones were much less in evidence and so perhaps past their best, but one big wild garlic wood in the afternoon was starting to flower. I also saw more goldilocks buttercup (a woodland species: one for the plant nerds) than I have seen in my life. Birdsong included chaffinch and blackcap, but worryingly few blackbirds (where are they all this year?). Foliage was that glorious eye-aching green of early spring.
In the afternoon group cohesion was good, but I then noticed a very unusual yellow moth (a brimstone: not the same as the butterfly of that name) and stopping to look at it meant I got left behind, at first slightly and then completely. By the time I got to the Sussex Oak in Warnham, three had left to get the 4.19 train. I joined the other three at a sunny table sheltered from the wind for tea. Two also had puds.
Some discussion about if to get the 5.19 train or walk to Horsham. Three favoured the former, but the walk poster wanted to do the latter, so in the end we all went. This was a much pleasanter walk than it appears on the map. We eventually got to the Black Jug (?), a favoured pub of the poster, but could not get a seat inside so had a drink at a table out front. (The back patio is nicer, apparently, but was shut for maintenance.)
We then went to the station to get the 5.55 Thameslink which was showing as on time right up to a minute after its departure time, when it was revealed that it - and pretty much every other train into London Bridge - was cancelled due to multiple incidents and likely to remain so in perpetuity. So we got the 6.20 to Victoria instead, the three South Londoners in the party spending much of the journey working out creative ways to get home without using the cancelled trains. I hope this all worked out for them.
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