Length: 12km (7.5 miles) to Petworth, up to 18.8km (11.7 miles) including a loop around the Petworth estate, and 23.8km (14.8 miles) for the circular walk back to Pulborough. T=swc.128
Buy a day return to Pulborough
Yes, I know this walk was posted a couple of Sundays ago, but only two people turned up on that occasion. Not sure why, as it is a great choice for this time of year. My memory is of several nice bluebell woods and pretty countryside on the way to Petworth. Definitely a good April walk.
It is 7.5 miles to the charming town of Petworth, where there are two pubs and some cafes for lunch. You can take it easy in the afternoon by doing a loop around the estate of Petworth House, which adds anything from two to four miles depending on the option you choose, or by visiting the house itself (National Trust: grand but a bit intimidating, if you ask me...). Either way you then catch a number one bus from Petworth back to Pulborough station (departing at 13.44, 14.44, 15.49, 16.54, 18.04, 19.14 and 19.44: 13 minutes journey time)
Alternatively, red-blooded walkers can walk back to Pulborough, making a total walk of 14.8 miles. The tea/drinks stop on this option is the extremely quaint White Hart at Stopham Bridge, 1.4 miles before the end of the walk. This serves drinks all afternoon, though its kitchen does not reopen till 6pm. There is nothing much in the refreshment line in the vicinity of Pulborough station.
Trains back from Pulborough are at 24 and 54 past.
2 comments:
27 assembled on the station platform for this walk. Inevitably with such a big group we quickly got a bit strung out. The weather was better than expected - w=quite-a-bit-of-sun , though cloud at times. It felt very warm and even a bit sticky.
The bluebells did not appear till mid morning and were in small-ish patches rather than big swathes. Still nice though. There were lots of other floral delights. However the biggest excitement for me (and the one other person I was with at the time) was hearing a nightingale mid morning. This is almost the only time I have heard one in the ordinary countryside, that is outside a site where they are known to be present.
The approach to Petworth is one of the highlights of this walk. On its ridge top it looks like a Tuscan village (a judiciously placed Lombardy poplar helps this illusion). Its outskirts were awash with alkanet, red campion, forget-me-not and greater celandine.
A fair number of the faster walkers descended on the Angel for lunch. It proved a bit too much for the pub staff, so some of us sought other options. Two of us found the walk author with a beer outside the Star (making a total of n=28 in the walk, I guess - though how much walking did he do?) and ate there. Placing orders at the bar proved a slow process, however, and several others gave up and decamped to a nearby cafe (Tiffins?), where they ate at outside tables. Two more joined the diners to have drinks at the Star.
After lunch the consensus seemed to be to do the loop around Petworth Park and get the bus. So just five of us girded up our loins to do the route back to Pulborough. On the way we heard our first cuckoo of the year and saw a deer, while swallows flew overhead. We had a nice sit down on a bench on the wooded heathland of Hesworth Common.
I forgot to mention that as we were leaving Petworth several horse-drawn racing gigs turned up driven by burly men and boys. Approaching the White Hart at Stopham Bridge these passed us on the road, urging their not always happy steeds to greater speed. Realising they were about to descend on the pub, I ran over the ancient bridge and was able to get drinks for three of us before the crush. Three others who arrived a tad later were not so lucky, finding the bar rammed. This prompted one to carry straight on to Pulborough. After a while the crush subsided, however, and the other two got their drinks, and three more walkers turned up who had done part of the Petworth Park loop and then the afternoon route. (Giants walk the Earth!) They also got drinks and joined us at our pleasant outside table by the river.
After a quiet walk over the hill to Pulborough station, we comfortably caught the 19.24 train, with only a couple of hundred metres of running needed at the end. Nice chat (but no “supplies”) on the way home. Noisy football fans greeted those of us who stayed on all the way to Victoria.
From reliable resource - 2 more took an earlier train, so n=30?
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