Length: 17.7 km (11 miles). Toughness: 4/10
10:21 East Grinstead train from Victoria (Clapham Jct 10:28, East Croydon 10:39), arriving East Grinstead at 11:18. Nip smartly outside the station to Bus Stop A and take Metrobus 270 at 11:25. Alight at the Brambletye Hotel stop in Forest Row to start the walk at 11:39. If the train is late or the 270 doesn't run, there's a Metrobus 291 due at 11:42.
At the end of this circular walk you can either catch one of these buses up the hill, or do the 5.5 km extension to East Grinstead station described in the walk document. The buses are infrequent (every 2-3 hours) and the only relevant ones are at 17:20 (#291) and 18:05 (#270); the first should connect with the 17:42 train but the second just misses the next half-hourly one at 18:12.
The lunch pub on this walk is shared with the Horsted Keynes Circular and in recent years a mix'n'match version of the two walks has invariably been chosen (in fact the original Forest Row walk hasn't been posted for 10 years). Walks like this requiring a bus connection are rarely viable on Sundays but the connections here work well enough, and the walk notes promise that this is a particularly good time of year to admire the purple heather on Ashdown Forest.
There are some steady climbs on the morning leg before you reach a stylish country pub in Chelwood Gate with an attractive beer garden, the Red Lion. The afternoon leg back to Forest Row is easier, but if you do over-indulge at lunch you could sneak back to East Grinstead on the 270 bus at 15:08 (it stops across the road from the pub). The walk document lists several tea places in Forest Row, and there are more in East Grinstead if you want to stop off there before catching the train back.
You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.23
1 comment:
A decent turnout of n=10 for this Sunday train+bus walk in w=partly-sunny weather. Two young newcomers eyed us up and judged that they'd be able to have a coffee in Forest Row before setting off and still catch us up. Which they did. Up hill and down dale then to the Red Lion, which gets full marks for serving an excellent Sunday lunch to four of us promptly and with no fuss, despite being pretty busy.
After a short mid-afternoon pause at the Ashdown Forest Visitor Centre we got back to Forest Row with 15 minutes to spare for the 5.20 bus, just time for some of us to grab an ice cream at Java & Jazz. At the start of the day some had talked bravely of extending the walk up the hill to East Grinstead, but in the end we all opted for the bus. There'd been no problem with the outgoing connection, but the 291 was 10 minutes late so we missed the train I'd hoped to catch. Still, this was only a minor blip on an excellent day.
I hope this fine walk doesn't have to wait another 10 years for its next posting.
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