Length: 14¼ km (8.8 miles). Toughness: 1/10
10:51 East Grinstead train from Victoria (Clapham Jct 10:58, East Croydon 11:09), changing at Oxted (arr 11:33, dep 11:38) for the Uckfield train, arriving Edenbridge Town at 11:47.
Trains back from Edenbridge Town are hourly at xx:10, again changing at Oxted. If there are problems on this line there's another Edenbridge station with trains to Redhill at xx:24 (tickets are issued to 'Edenbridge Stations' and valid on both routes).
In the May timetable revision Southern unaccountably withdrew the Sunday service which connected with the 10:38 Uckfield train, which up to now has successfully dissuaded our Sunday posters from choosing any walks on this line. This short walk is one of the few which is just about feasible with the train an hour later, although it would be advisable to book ahead if you want a pub lunch: you'll arrive back at Edenbridge at around 1.30pm, peak time for Sunday lunch. The suggested pub is The Old Eden; I haven't tried Ye Old Crown since it resumed serving food but it looks like a reasonable alternative.
The walk itself is undemanding, with the first loop through farmland and meadows to the east of the town and the second through water meadows (and a farm airstrip) to the west. At the end there's a Costa Coffee on the High Street (open to 4.45pm) as well as the two pubs.
You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.344 page. You can save a page or two by clicking the Main Walk option.
1 comment:
Many SWC walks start off as a group which gradually disperses over the day. This was the opposite. On a w=partly-sunny day only two turned up on the posted train, but several others arrived by car. All had parked in different places at different times and everyone found a slightly different route out of the town, so were only dimly aware that others on the horizon might be fellow SWC walkers. Eventually though a group began to form and n=8 met up at The Old Eden for lunch, where it was warm enought to sit outside and so there was no problem about getting food.
The walk poster had muttered something about only doing the first half of the walk but was shamed into staying the course, so we had perfect cohesion for the afternoon. No low-flying aircraft to contend with this time, but the lead walker did well to spot a viciously-placed trip-wire across the public footpath which might have caused some damage. Edenbridge's Costa was still open at the end of the walk but we gave it a miss and dispersed pretty quickly. As we'd just missed the 16:08 train the two non-drivers were dropped off at Oxted to catch the connecting Victoria train there.
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