Length: 13¾ km (8.5 miles). Toughness: 4/10
10:21 East Grinstead train from Victoria (Clapham Jct 10:28, East Croydon 10:39), arriving Woldingham at 10:55. Buy a return to Oxted.
Trains back from Oxted are half-hourly at xx:29 & xx:59.
This walk goes through a mix of open valleys, woodland and parkland, with a fair bit of climbing packed into its short length. Its author has a well-deserved reputation for devising ‘motorway walks’ and this one ranks near the top of the list, with long stretches irritatingly close to the M25 (it will help if you're a bit deaf in the right ear).
The up-market Botley Hill Farmhouse is a popular pub / restaurant which will be busy but it does have a first-come first-served ‘Sheep Shed’ where you might be able to get a mini-roast for your Sunday lunch. The other option would be to skip the out-and-back climb to the pub and carry on to the Titsey Place Tea Room, which now offers light lunches as well as a tempting selection of cakes. The manor house itself is closed on Sundays but the gardens are open from 1-5pm (admission £7.50).
I've chosen the Short Walk option because it has a much better set of refreshment places later in the walk, with a pub and coffee shop in Limpsfield as well as several more places in Oxted itself. But if you're feeling energetic you could stick to the more strenuous Main Walk after Titsey Place and circle back to Woldingham.
You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.244.a page.
3 comments:
WARNING: At para 18, the left-hand higher path is currently blocked off for forestry operations. This seems to leave no choice but to take the lower path as I had to do today. After going downhill, it leveled out and continued for a long stretch through woodland, eventually coming to a T-junction with a 3-way signpost. This indicated that the path just traversed was on the NDW which then continued to the left. But having received advice from a dog-walker I turned right for another fair stretch which eventually passed through a metal field gate and shortly afterwards ended at a junction with Pitchfont Lodge on the left. Thus it turned out to be an unplanned shortcut and I proceeded with para 37, section J - incidentally the main route bridleway had muddy patches and puddles but was perfectly passable. I expect Sean has other suggestions for how to deal with the current path blockage.
Warnings of motorway noise didn't manage to put off #9 people on this #hot_sunny day, although 2 missed the train and arrived half an hour later.
On reaching the Titsey Plantation, the path is taped off and a Forestry Commission sign indicates ongoing tree thinning works. We thought it unlikely that works were being done on a Sunday and decided to dice with death and enter and not long after, we passed other groups of walkers along the way.
The benches in the Plantation made a lovely nice picnic spot with views across the valley and those who went for lunch at Botley Farmhouse were happy with the service and their substantial kiddies portions.
Not much later along the route, Titsey Place itself made a very tempting tea stop with it's idylic setting and outside seating but, still full from lunch, we carried on to Limpsfield for refreshment at the Bull Inn.
I thought it was a very nice walk, which deserves to be done more often.
Actually n=10 because I did the walk in reverse. Involuntarily, the result of being distracted by an assiduous revenue officer and failing to realise that we had arrived at Woldingham. Just as he finished I suffered the frustration of seeing familiar faces glide past the window as the train accelerated away.
I got out at Oxted and walked from there. The Tisley Place tea room had the biggest selection of cakes I have seen on any SWC walk, and they looked of high quality. But 1145 is a bit early for cake.
We've been teasing one of our number since he unaccountably failed to disembark from the train at Arundel some time ago and got swept on to Ford. Now it's my turn to be the group plonker.
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