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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 9 June 2018

Saturday Walk – Amberley Wild Brooks & Parham Park (Pulborough Circular)

Extra Walk 14 – Pulborough Circular
Length: 21 km (13 miles), with shorter afternoon options. Toughness: 4/10

09:36 Southampton & Bognor Regis train from Victoria (Clapham Jct 09:43, East Croydon 09:53), arriving Pulborough at 10:51. You need to be in the rear portion, for Bognor Regis. A return to Amberley is the same fare as Pulborough and would allow you to cut the walk short.

Return trains from Pulborough to Victoria are at xx:24 & xx:55 to 21:55 (more regularly than before with the new timetable). If you finish at Amberley, trains are hourly at xx:17.

I thought this fairly long but easy walk might be scuppered when Amberley's second pub closed recently, but fortunately The Sportsman has been taken over by the local Greyhound Brewery and is up and running again. Its food offerings are untried but at worst you could press on to the reliable Crown Inn in Cootham for a late pub lunch.

After lunch you have a choice. For a short and leisurely afternoon you could meander across the water meadows and finish at Amberley station. The standard option is to complete a circuit back to Pulborough, taking the short cut if you want to be sure of getting to the RSPB reserve's tearoom at Pulborough Brooks before it closes at around 4.45pm. And if you can't resist climbing the South Downs, the Walk Notes point out ways in which you could switch to one of the more challenging SWC walks in this area.

At the end of the walk further refreshment is available at the friendly Oddfellows Arms in Pulborough, and you won't go thirsty if you finish at Amberley either.

You'll need to bring the directions from the Pulborough Circular walk page.
T=swc.14

6 comments:

Andrew said...

Sportsman: You're a closure out of date... Closed and re-opened again since then. The view from the terrace over the flood plain is as lovely as ever, but seemed overpriced. Call ahead for an outside table if its a nice day.
Crown Inn: Popular (so I must be missing something) but variable food. The 2/3 course "smaller portions" set menu is good
There's a new Thai bar/restaurant (?) by Pulborough station

Sean said...

This walk works much better with a lunch stop in Amberley and when The Sportsman closed in January it wasn't looking good (the Black Horse had been closed for many years). But as someone reported on another walk The Sportsman re-opened in April and so the walk is feasible again, hence this posting. And next year there should be a choice of two pubs again: a successful campaign by the Amberley Society saved the Black Horse from conversion to two holiday homes, an extensive renovation is underway and it's due to re-open in the winter.

Anonymous said...

This is the only link that I can find for the Sportsman pub
https://www.amberleystores.co.uk/the-sportsman-inn/
but unfortunately it doesn't give menus

There is a facebook link but that is of little value and their website address does not seem to be working
thesportsmanamberley.co.uk

Somebody must be able to find it

Andrew said...

The Sportsman has no website, just its Facebook page. Odd, but oddly, not unusual for a reopened pub! The food is "OK", the usual suspects... burger, fish & chips, and a few more interesting options... mine didn't quite work.
Good to hear about the Black Horse. I'd heard locally that it was going to be more of a upmarket restaurant. Seems it'll be part pub after all.

Mr M Tiger said...

N=24 turned up on a w=warm-humid day. Quite a pleasant walk and would have been uneventful had not a slightly crazy woman with a dog (not one of us) insisted on following me through a field of cows, shouting at them, waving her stick and even chasing them towards me at one point. Mercifully, the cows were docile. At the other side she said “you got to be strict with cows”. Yeah, right. Amberley Wild Brooks was dry for Amberly Wild Brooks. (Slightly sploshy but not as sploshy as it could have been). Amberley's gardens were pretty as ever. About half the group made it to the Sportsman. A friendly place. I foolishly declined the Harveys, opting instead for "Treefrog" pale ale. Big mistake. I don’t even like pale ale and I think this particular pint could well have once been treefrog habitat. And so, on down an uneventful lane to Pulborough Brooks for tea and cake. Wiggonholt churchyard had flowering orchids. Then a final push back to the station for the 16:55.

sylvia said...

Beautiful walk. Added bonus for the picnickers opposite the Sportsman was a kind offer of tea from the lady in the cottage. She gave me a lovely cuppa, in a china cup with saucer, and digestive biscuits!