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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 19 November 2016

Saturday Second Walk - Short, scenic, colourful (hopefully)

SWC Walk 196 - Wadhurst to Tunbridge Wells
Length: 13.8km (8.5 miles)
Toughness: 5 out of 10

9.45 train from Charing Cross (9.48 Waterloo East, 9.53 London Bridge, 10.10 Orpington) to Wadhurst, arriving 10.47.

Buy a day return to Wadhurst.

For walk directions click here.

Every now and then a SWC walker picks up their quill pen, takes a fresh sheet of parchment and writes to say "Why, oh why can't we have more SHORT walks?"

Well, today is your lucky day, since this walk is modest in length, but a gem in terms of scenery, particularly in the morning. After sharing the first 1km as other Wadhurst walks, it turns westwards through very pretty scenery, with a fair bit of upping and downing, the occasional view, and some nice woodland en route to Frant, where two very fine pubs await your attention (The George Inn is so fine it is probably worth ringing to book a table when you set off).

I recall some good autumn colour on this route in years gone past. Mud too - this is the Weald, after all - but cross fingers it has not had time to get too gloopy yet.

After lunch things go downhill a bit - literally and scenically (it is not horrible, just not as beautiful as the morning) - but never mind, because it is worth rushing on to Tunbridge Wells to try and get a seat in the lovely Juliets tea room (though if you could have arranged to have your name put down at birth, that would have been useful). Otherwise, TW does not lack in tea options, and if you are in a pubby mood, seeking out the surreal Opera House (a real opera house, now a Wetherspoons) is worth the effort.

Trains back from Tunbridge Wells are very frequent 09, 21, 39 and 51 past until at least 19.51: after that, look on your smartphone, but there are still lots.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just before Juliet's at 5 Castle St is Tiffin tea room which is my favourite. It's small but they have an upstairs bit too.

Bridie said...

N=20 or so got off of the train and had an excellent day out in w=autumnal-sun. This walk is perfect for this time of year with powerful views of hills and woods which the autumnal colours set off perfectly
14 of us lunched at the Abergavenny arms in Frant - very nice thank you - and 3 popped to the George
8 of us decided to lengthen the walk at the end to reduce the amount of suburban walking but oh so foolish of us as it then rained heavily for 40 minutes until we got to the tea room on the High St - not Juliet's but an independent coffee bar just a few doors further on and that was good as well - tea in a pot with loose tea - one day all tea will served this way.
6 of us made the 16.39 while the other 2 ' went shopping '- it is good for couples to have a past time
One of my fellow walkers, a journalist, asked if I could make this report witty as apparently most of the reports, ( M Tiger excepted ) are too dry - I am sorry but no I can't