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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.

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Tuesday walk - Up and Over the Greensand Ridge

T=swc.79.a SWC walk 79A+D - Edenbridge Town to Westerham
Length: 13.2km (8.1 miles), with a optional 2.1km (1.3 mile extension)
Longer walk: 19.1km (11.8 miles)
Toughness: 4 out of 10

10.08 train from London Bridge to Edenbridge Town, arriving 10.46.

Buy a day return to 'Edenbridge Stations'

For walk directions click here.

It is challenging to pick walks for the period between Christmas and New Year!! Engineering works to the left of them, engineering works to the right. But we will turn adversity to advantage by giving this little used combination an airing.

It starts with Alternative Route D on page 14 of the walk document, which takes you out, initially over lowland fields (mud likely!) to join with the main walk directions. The Greensand Ridge looms on the horizon and you climb it by gentle stages, with fine views from the top.

The diminutive Royal Oak in Crockham Hill may be able to squeeze some of us in for a pub lunch, but the fall back lunch option is the self-service restaurant at the National Trust property of Chartwell (the home of Winston Churchill, though its house is closed today: the garden and exhibition are open, however).

Just before Chartwell, in paragraph 30 of the main walk directions, switch when prompted in to Alternative Route A (page 11). You then follow this on a direct route for 4.5km (2.8 miles) over the hills to Westerham and its sundry tea options.

LONGER OPTIONS

include an extra 2.1km/1.3 mile loop around the Chartwell estate that can still be combined with the direct Westerham ending.

Or you may like to complete the main walk route - 10.4km (6.4 miles) from Chartwell to Westerham, giving a total walk of 19.1km (11.8 miles).

TO GET BACK TO LONDON

Catch a bus from Westerham (bus stop location given in walk directions) to Oxted railway station: Variously the 594, 595 or 236 and taking 15-20 minutes, the buses go at 15.03, 16.04, 16.33, 17.24, 17.33, 18.33 and 19.18.

Trains from Oxted are at 19 past to London Bridge and 24 and 54 past to Victoria

If it is more convenient, number 246 buses also run to Hayes (30 mins) or Bromley South (40 mins) stations, but your onward train travel from these stations would not be covered by your Edenbridge return. These buses go at 22 and 52 past until 18.22, then 19.22, 20.22, 21.12, 22.12, 23.12


3 comments:

Walker said...

n=14 on this walk on another w=fairly-sunny day (not a phrase we have been able to use very much recently). That is to say, there was generous amounts of sun, though also some cloud: also the very occasional spot of rain, but only spots.

The sunshine was so nice that even the crossing of the (deserted) golf course at the start was a delight. The fields once we got onto the Edenbridge start proper were rather squelchy - mildly tedious rather than terminally boggy, but this was enough to persuade a French family (pere, mere et fils) to give up at Crookham Hill. Domage, because the next section offered a particularly pretty gout d'Angleterre, (OK, that's enough of the schoolboy French - Ed)with sunlit views of the Weald.

Six of us tried to lunch at the Royal Oak in Crookham Hill. But alas, while they had a free table, it seemed we would have had to wait our turn to order behind other parties who had yet to arrive, so we moved on to Chartwell. Its self-service restaurant was not exactly covering itself in glory, with a limited selection of sandwiches and only sausage and mash or cheeseburger as hot items. A last minute appearance on the blackboard of Moroccan vegetable stew (tasty, if low on calories) saved the day for this particular punter.

After lunch we did the the optional loop around the Chartwell Estate, which was enjoyed by all. But alas we came to a locked gate at the end of it, and enquiries of passing National Trust staff revealed this locking is permanent. So this permissive route is now non-permissive and will be dumped from the walk directions (you all complain about too many options anyway)..

In the afternoon (shorter ending, alternative route a) nice views from Mariner's Hill and sightings of very early bluebell shoots, were not enough to deter some of the group from taking a direct route to Hurst Green. Six of us continued on a rather squelchy walk into Westerham, which we reached at 4.10pm. The consensus was that getting the 4.33 bus was a must so we had a lightning fast tea at the Tudor Tea Rooms and then provided the bus with its only passengers. At Oxted five of us dashed onto platform 1 and only just got the 4.54pm train. Our apologies to the sixth member of the party who did not.

Anonymous said...

Slight correction: grand-pere, mere et fils

Anonymous said...

Just to add that those who went to Hurst Green arrived there at 17:00. It was a pleasant route. Although there isn't a tea stop at Hurst Green, I suppose an option would be to take the train 1 train stop to Oxted and have tea there.