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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.

Sunday 24 December 2017

Christmas Eve walk: Whyteleafe to Hayes

Whyteleafe to Hayes

Length: 16.0km (9.9 miles) or 10.9km (6.8 miles) Toughness: 5/10 or 3/10

Only one walk is posted for today, since many SWC regulars will be away or engaged in Christmas preparations.

If you can’t spare the full day for walking, you could use one of the short options in the walk directions to do a half-day walk, finishing in New Addington after a morning walk or starting there for an afternoon walk. Frequent trams run between New Addington and East Croydon.

If doing either of the short options and not wanting to visit the lunchtime pub, you could shorten these options by:
A) to finish at New Addington, leave the main walk at point [2] and follow Short Walk Option 1 in reverse; or
B) to start at New Addington, follow Short Walk Option 2 in reverse and join the main walk at point [3].

09:53 East Grinstead train from Victoria (Clapham Junction 09:59, East Croydon 10:10), arriving at Upper Warlingham at 10:21.

There are no trains to Whyteleafe station today due to engineering works

Return trains from Hayes run to Victoria today via Catford and Lewisham at xx:04 and xx:34 (journey time 42 mins).

The stations at both ends of the walk, and New Addington too, are in Zones 5 & 6, so a one-day off-peak Travelcard covers your journeys.

Despite its proximity to London, this walk is surprisingly rural in character, passing through woods, fields and quiet valleys, often along shady bridleways. The second half of the walk is entirely within a London borough, though it does not feel like it.

The recommended lunch pub is the very popular 16th century White Bear (01959 573166) at Fickleshole. You can expect to get there by 12:00 or 12:15pm, in plenty of time to beat all the lunch parties who have booked tables today. But do ring the pub as you set off to let them know how many walkers are wanting to eat there.

Walk directions are here: L=swc.38
T=swc.38

1 comment:

Chris L said...

n=12, w=cloudy_but_dry_and_mild. Despite being fully booked, the White Bear squeezed in the six walkers who wanted a pub lunch. Later, three tried out a new diversion across fields that cut out a section of a long bridleway but lengthened the walk a bit. Since Java & Chai was closed, some finished the day with a drink at the New Inn.