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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.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Saturday second walk: A downland grand slam

L=3.47.®

SWC walk 47 - Lewes Circular via Southease and Glynde
Length: 17.2km (10.7 miles) to 23.5km (14.6 miles)
Toughness: 7 out of 10: one steep climb per section, level or downhill otherwise

9.46 train from Victoria (9.52 Clapham Junction, 10.02 East Croydon) to Lewes, arriving 10.50.

** LATE START OPTION: see end of post

Buy a day return to Lewes if planning to do the whole walk, or a day return to Glynde if you think you might want to finish there.

For walk directions click here. You only need pages 1-2 and the anticlockwise directions on page 6-8.

Every step of this walk will be familiar territory to many SWC walkers from book two walks 24 and 25, but it is putting it all together that makes a grand June day out. If you stay the course, you go over three sections of downland and cross two valleys (each with a pub in it) and end up back in Lewes feeling pretty pleased with yourself. Throughout you have wonderful views, including the whole route you have done and have still to do.

The walk can be done clockwise, but it is anticlockwise (Lewes-Southease-Glynde-Lewes) I much prefer and ordain for today. It has lots of advantages, including getting the longest section out of the way before lunch, shorter climbs and longer descents, and better options for cutting the walk short.

By this route it is 9.2km (5.7 miles) to lunch at the Abergavenny Arms via the familiar morning route of book 2, walk 24. (An alternative lunch would be at the YHA cafe by Southease station 1.6km/1 mile further on). You then have a 8km (5 mile) walk from the Abergavenny Arms to Glynde. Tea options here include the Trevor Arms or the Little Cottage Tea Rooms.

You can finish the walk at Glynde (making a total walk of 17.2km (10.7 miles) by taking a train to Lewes at 23 past the hour.

Otherwise the last 6.3km (3.9 miles) of the walk - more of a victory lap, really - are over wonderful Mount Caburn: one sustained climb with lovely views and then a gentle stroll down into Lewes, from where trains return to London at 20 and 52 past until 19.52, then 20.52, 21.50 and 22.40 (the last being the "Glyndebourne train" that you will share with dinner-jacketed opera goers).

** LATE START OPTION: Slugabeds could catch the 11.16 train to Lewes, arriving 12.20, changing there for the 12.28 to Southease, arriving 12.34. Buy a day return to Southease. Print off the book 26 directions and follow them to lunch at the Abergavenny Arms (3.5km/2.2 miles) and join the group there. If you then walk to Glynde you will have done a walk of 11.5km (7.2 miles) and finishing the walk to Lewes will make it 17.8km (11.1 miles).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very keen to do this walk. Anyone else?

Walker said...

You will not be alone. I know several people planning to do this walk. I am sure the fine weather will bring out more.

Walker said...

Saturday 6 June: SWC walk 47 - Lewes Circular via Southease and Glynde: n=18 on this walk, including two taking the late start option from Southease. w=sunny-but-windy, a really stiff and somewhat chilly breeze on the tops of the downs, but at least the clouds that gathered to the north never came our way.

What can be said,except that this was a perfect day out - gorgeous views, a gorgeous time of year and gorgeous territory, easy underfoot. A bit of climbing to get the blood pumping but lots of easy walking along the tops or down the other side. Lunch at the Abergavenny Arms came fairly quickly despite it being busy: tea was split between the Trevor Inn (which apparently now offers good cakes) and the Cottage Tea Room in Glynde. At least ten of us - in three groups - completed the whole circuit to Lewes - and had drinks/eats to celebrate. One or two got the train from Glynde.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the swifts, which were frequently seen swooping low over the downs. Usually they fly up high and it was amazing to see them close up. How big they are!