10.26 train from London Bridge (10.40 East Croydon) to Riddlesdown, arriving 10.48
Outward and return travel is within zone six, so use contactless, Oyster or passes.
Click here for written directions, GPX and map: if using written directions, the Kingswood ending is in a separate document in the blue button menu.
If the weather is nice, this walk provides a perfectly decent downland outing, with just a bit of suburbia en route: if it is wet, there are means of escape, including a TFL bus (the 466 to East Croydon) from outside the lunch pub.
One shorter option is ending at Coulsdon South - the shorter version of the afternoon route to this station makes for a total walk of 7.8 miles. Note that there are engineering works from this station today, however: a replacement bus to Purley at 10 and 40 past taking 25 minutes, giving a journey time of one hour to London Bridge.
If you take the suggested route - the alternative ending to Kingswood - there are no such issues. Trains from here back to East Croydon and London Bridge go at 22 and 52 past the hour.
Lunch is after 3.9 miles at the Fox in Coulsdon Common - a large chain pub. How advisable or otherwise it is to book here, someone with more recent experience might like to say in a comment.
Tea is at the Kingswood Arms, near to the station.
1 comment:
The fall of the House of Walker!! There was grumbling on Riddlesdown station that “only” 11 turned up for this walk. It was felt that Walker’s walks were losing their touch. Later in the lunch pub someone was kind enough to suggest that my walk reports “could have been written by AI”. So, knives out, basically….
As we climbed up onto Kenley Common we were met by a local walk poster, making N=12 in all. But he then led some of us astray, suggesting a walk along Kenley airfield instead of the specified route. This led to fragmentation that lasted much of the walk.
The Fox on Coulsdon Common was almost empty when we arrived and did not fill up significantly while we were there. This was a surprise, as in the past this pub has been really busy. Three ate, some sandwichers had drinks: others popped in to say they were just wandering on and we would catch them up (yeh, right…).
The weather was w=mostly-cloudy - some sun at times but it never became widespread. The crossing of Happy Valley apart, I found the afternoon surprisingly arable: big fields, mostly surface mud, but one field near the end heavily ploughed and very hard going. We stopped briefly to see the frescoes in Chaldon Church.
Near Kingswood there was a very pretty valley, however, and here a miracle occurred. Pretty much the whole group (apart from two who had finished at lunch time) coalesced in the space of about fifty metres, sandwichers reappearing to meet the pub lunchers, etc. How this happened, I do not know, but it was nice to see everyone again.
In the pub at the end, one further surprise. A walk poster not on the walk was sat there with a pint. There is no easy way to say this, but he had been LEADING A WALK FOR ANOTHER GROUP!!! We had (mostly) tea and a nice chat and some got the 16.22 and some the 16.52.
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