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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Sunday, 4 August 2024

Sunday Walk - Haslemere to Midhurst via Lurgashall or Lickfold

Length: 21.7 km (13.5 mi) or 20.8 km (13.0 mi)
Ascent/Descent: 469/587
Net Walking Time: 5 ¼ hours
Toughness: 6/10

 

Take the 09.00 Portsmouth Harbour train from Waterloo (09.09 CJ, 09.33 Woking), arrives Haslemere 10.06. 
Return to Haslemere Station from Midhurst by Bus Line 70 (26 mins journey, relevant buses: 16.35 and 18.35 or by taxi. 
Return trains from Haslemere are on xx.17 and xx.42.
[Note: the relatively early train out (for a Sunday) is chosen so that punters can get the 16.35 bus back.]

The route leads from Haslemere station through the town’s centre and along the waymarked Serpent Trail through a small Nature Reserve to rise steeply out of town and back down through Camelsdale to then rise with the Sussex Border Path through pastures and pine and heather covered slopes up to the Black Down. Following the crest through open heathland, with far views across West Sussex and out to Hampshire, you reach the Temple Of The Winds viewpoint, with further panoramic views over the Rother Valley to the South Downs escarpment and easterly across to the West Weald.

A long descent through the sloping open grounds of Blackdown House and through bluebell-carpeted woods leads to either the classic Sussex village of Lurgashall, with its pub and church at the corner of a picturesque village green and cricket pitch, or to the hamlet of Lickfold with its super-duper Inn.

The afternoon takes you through a mix of flat farmland and wooded hills to the Cowdray Estate, with its golf course-with-views as well as several polo fields, to the romantic ruins of Cowdray House, as captured by JMW Turner. Climbing from the River Rother’s banks, Midhurst's Norman castle ruins are passed en-route to the old market town's attractive centre with its many tea options.

Lunch: The Noah's Ark in Lurgashall (10.3 km/6.4 mi, food to 15.30, table booked for 12.30). Or The Three Horseshoes Inn in Lickfold (11.0 km/6.8 mi, food to 16.00, booking recommended). 
Tea: lots of choice en-route to and in Midhurst (see the pdf for details), recommended are The Halfway Hut (3 km from the end), Cowdray Farm Shop & Cafe (2 km from the end, open to 17.00), Garton’s Coffee House, The Wheatsheaf or Fitzcane’s (open to 16.00). [The Angel Inn and The Olive & Vine are still closed after a catastrophic fire last year].
 
For summary, map, height profile, some photos, walk directions and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.48 
 
Stargazer is away

5 comments:

Thomas G said...

All trains delayed or cancelled out of Waterloo. Person hit by train apparently. Let's meet on the concourse and decide what to do.

Claudia said...

Where are you meeting? I am at the station.

Thomas G said...

In front of platform 12

Thomas G said...

Hoofing it to Paddington to join the other sec walk

Thomas G said...

8 of us did that