T=swc.175
Length: Main Walk: 16¼ km (10.1 miles). Shorter options are detailed in the directions.
Difficulty: 4 out of 10 for the main walk, 2 and 3 out of 10 for the shorter options.
Trains: Catch the 10.07 Uckfield train from London Bridge (East Croydon 10.22) arriving Hever 10.49.
Return trains from Ashurst xx.56
Buy a return ticket to Ashurst
If you plan to start the walk in Cowden, it is one stop beyond Hever. A later train could be taken.
This walk takes in a quiet part of the High Weald on the border of Kent and East Sussex. The route passes several attractive old manor houses. This is a surprisingly remote area of low hills and wooded valleys.
Lunch: The only pub on the walk route is The Fountain (01342-850528) in Cowden village, 7¾ km from Hever (4 km from Cowden station). This is an attractive village pub with a new conservatory and a secluded beer garden. It serves good home-made food up to 2.30pm (later on Sundays).
Tea: There are few refreshment places in this remote countryside, but the route to Ashurst passes the Perryhill Orchard Farm Shop & Tea Rooms (01892-770595) in mid-afternoon. The Farm Shop is open daily to 5pm and sells a tempting range of local ciders (which you can taste beforehand); the tearoom closes at 4.30pm. Allow at least an hour to reach Ashurst station, 4 km away. There are no refreshment options after this.
For walk directions, map and GPS click here
1 comment:
#13 off the train at Hever and #1 local, so #14 on a #glorious-spring-day-under-a-blue-sky-and-warm-sunshine. Even the mud, such a distinctive and much discussed feature of walks in the Weald, was confined to a minimum, with one extensive stretch, near Ravenscroft Farm, thoughtfully covered in wood chippings, presumably by a public-spirited landowner. Such behaviour was a minor theme of this walk, with two footpath diversions both proving to be positively beneficial, one of them (gated but not yet waymarked) avoiding a walk along a road with no footpath. Bluebells were out in abundance, great rafts of them in secluded woodlands.
Cowden was reached about 1pm, most walkers opting for a picnic in the grounds of St Mary's church, 4(?) eating in the Fountain, a Harvey's pub under new management since last November - reports welcome.
The afternoon began with a stroll across the immaculately manicured greens of Sweetwoods golf club, with signs imploring walkers to follow the waymarked path - but no waymarks. Featherstone wood, immediately to the south, has many false trails for the unwary, and GPS (and a compass) is invaluable for this length. Failing those, bring breadcrumbs.
Across the A264 and, over a couple of fields, into the peaceful haven of Coomb Wood, awash with bluebells and with the path unusually clear to follow (perhaps because of the bluebells) and past the recently-restored Bolebrook Castle.
Large country houses upon which large country amounts of money had clearly been lavished were another theme of this walk, with much speculation about the sources of the funds required - Euromillions being the favourite.
A brief halt at Peeryhill farmshop to shample shome shider (delishious!) and then on to Beech Green Lane where a new diversion (not yet shown on the definitive map) was ignored for want of waymarking, and the old (officially extinguished, but still marked) path followed to Lodgefield Farm and down to Ashurst station in good time for the 16:56 to London Bridge. Most of the group had left Cowden earlier and presumably caught the 15:56 - or they may still be trying to find a way out of Fetherstone wood. A glorious day out - it should be prescribed on the NHS.
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