Length: 16½ km (10.3 miles), with shorter endings possible. Toughness: 3/10
10:00 Portsmouth Harbour train from Waterloo (Clapham Jct 10:09), changing at Surbiton (arr 10:23, dep 10.32) for the Guildford via Cobham train which should be waiting on the adjacent platform, arriving Oxshott at 10:42. [NB. This train starts from Wimbledon at 10:14]
Trains back from Oxshott are hourly at xx:13. If you want to give yourself the flexibility of a shorter ending buy a slightly more expensive return to Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon rather than Oxshott (see below; trains back at xx:10).
This walk around Surrey's wooded heaths and the Mole valley would not claim to be the most scenic one in the SWC repertoire; its original purpose was to provide the opportunity to visit “England's most elegant 18thC landscape garden”. If you're willing to fork out the £10 entrance fee (it's not a National Trust property), a circuit around Painshill Park will certainly compensate for any perceived shortcomings in the rest of the walk (though there should be some colourful heather on Oxshott Heath and Esher Common, visited on one of our summer evening walks).
The most conveniently-placed lunch establishment is The Plough, but this “steak, seafood and cocktail restaurant” on the outskirts of Cobham looks even more upmarket than I recall from previous visits. The Medicine Garden nearby is reportedly closed for restoration, but might have a pop-up café. Failing that, there are several coffee shops and cafés on Cobham's High Street, plus Mr Hamilton's Tea Room for visitors to Painshill Park.
If you spend time visiting Painshill (or just want a shorter walk) the directions include an alternative ending to Oxshott station and an even shorter one to Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon. These both miss out Esher Common but go past Cobham Mill, “the only surviving fully working watermill in Surrey”. This is one of the few days of the year when it's open to the public (from 2-5pm with free admission, although the volunteers who run it would doubtless appreciate a purchase from its small souvenir shop).
Note that there are no refreshment places near Oxshott station (and probably Cobham station too on a Sunday), so try to arrive in good time for one of the hourly trains.
As the group might fragment in the afternoon because of the places to visit and alternative endings, please make sure you bring the directions from the L=swc.305
3 comments:
N=8 and a small dog started out. One disappeared early on but, apparently, resurfaced later in a tearoom somewhere. The weather w=started-cloudy-finished-sunny Dry underfoot.
We had arrived at the Cricketers by 12 but, having each just been given an apple by a kindly local apple-picker, this was deemed too early for lunch. (no, I don’t understand either) Luckily, I’ve been practising not sulking so I was able to maintain my cheerful countenance all the way to the next pub, the Plough. They were short staffed and weren’t doing walk-ins so 2 just had cider. 2 had. coffee (said to be good), others went to the churchyard. We all met up there later and went inside and looked at some old stuff. Here we diverged, 2 visiting Painshill Park, the rest diverting for a look at Cobham Mill. We were just too early to visit the mill (2-5 Sundays) so we pressed on.
On reaching the motorway, there was another parting of the ways, 3 going round Eaher Common and 2 not.
A very pleasant walk with lots of big trees but one drawback - no tea place near the end to await the hourly train. We sat in the sun on a bench in Oxshott Heath instead. Most of us got the 1613.
The two Painshill Parkers met up with the missing walker in its tearoom. All three did the full 5km circuit of the landscaped grounds, with their artfully crafted vistas. Over tea'n'cake some advanced mathematics suggested that we could bypass Esher Common on the main ending and make the 17:13 train, which we did comfortably.
There were plenty of dog walkers about on Oxshott Heath and it's a shame that no-one has seen fit to open a pop-up café near the station to serve them. I guess there are worse places to hang about for an hourly train but it's not ideal (especially if you've been persuaded to forgo that second pint of cider, as Mr M Tiger lamented).
The description of this walk undersold it. It is at least as good as several of the Book 1 walks, even without Painshill Park. I enjoyed it and would do it again.
Post a Comment