Length: 17.9km (11.6 miles), 6 out of 10, 5 hours walking.
This is a walk full of interest and variety - the Greensand Way, a pretty village pub, a NT Arboretum (that's free to walk through), a tea room by a canal, and historic Godalming's coffee shops, cafes and pubs to end.
Trains: 9.45 from London Waterloo (9.52 Clapham Junction, 10.13 Woking) arriving Milford 10.38. Return trains from Godalming: xx10, xx42 (slow), xx51. Buy a return to Milford.
Lunch: The suggested stop for a pub lunch is the White Horse (tel 01483 208 258) in Hascombe, some 8.1 km into the walk, which serves good food from midday to 9.30pm. A little further on from the pub, picnickers will find benches outside Hascombe church and around the small lake across the road from it.
A later lunch option is the cafe by the entrance to Winkworth Arboretum , some 10.9 km into the walk. It serves a limited selection of hot dishes and a range of sandwiches.
Tea: various options in Godalming The Star Inn on Church Street for real ales..
for more information click L=1.20
2 comments:
21 at the station, joined by one at lunch, makes n=22 on this walk. w=Sun-sun-sun as usual. Was there ever any other kind of weather? We could do with some rain, to be honest, but for now the grass is still green and the celandines and primroses still flowering their hearts out. Some bluebells have also decided they had better bloom while the going is good. And the shrubs and trees have that wonderful vibrant eye-ache green of new foliage.
All this filled the time to lunch very nicely. A few did the longer loop in the morning, but most didn’t. Fourteen (?) of us ate at the White Horse. This was my kind of pub. Not too busy but busy enough to not look as if it was about to go out of business. Happy to let us order at the bar and to serve meals on its capacious patio. Eight of us ate outdoors, the others indoors.
After lunch the group got splintered. As is traditional, if not mandatory, we never saw the sandwichers again. Three explored a longer loop up Hascombe Hill. Five others stuck to the main route, with three stopping for tea at Winkworth Arboretum. The Arboretum itself was full of (cherry?) blossom.
There were more butterflies in the afternoon (I saw only one in the morning), including my first orange tips of the year. Some people pulled ahead and two of the three afternoon loopers caught me up. The five of us somehow managed to end up in two different tea rooms in Godalming, Coffee#1 and Esquire, both open to 6pm. We came together again for the 6.10 train home.
All in all a super day, but one walker complained that this walk could have been scheduled a couple of weeks later in rhododendron and azalea time. I would note that a few rhodies were in flower at the entrance to Winkworth.
#1 supplementary: Having caught the 18:50 (the train being delayed) from Godalming this walker adds his update on butterfly sightings (possibly the best butterfly captured on a SWC…). Not being a lepidopterist but still very happy to see 2 peacock butterflies on 2 separate occasions and photograph it on the 2nd sighting. This was an eventful walk. Post lunch and post the Hascombe Hill extension loop, this walker realised he had dropped his sunglasses somewhere and went back to retrace his steps. What looked a forlorn task turned into finding a needle in a haystack moment. Visibly happy to have found them, he completed the rest of the walk solo. Thanks to the other SWC walkers who did do the Hascombe loop with myself and did offer to retrace back my steps (one tea and one cider if I recall for next time 😃)
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