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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 8 December 2018

Saturday walk - Hassocks to Brighton

Length: 22.5km (14 miles), but this includes a walk along Brighton seafront and up to the station which can be done by bus. To "civilisation" in Brighton (the start of Kemp Town Racecourse, after which you could walk entirely on illuminated roads) is 18.4km (11.4 miles). A shorter ending at Falmer also possible after 12.5km (7.8 miles)

Toughness: 7 out of 10: a big hill climb or two, but actually mostly not that tough

9.25 train from Victoria (9.32 Clapham Junction, 9.41 East Croydon) to Hassocks, arriving 10.20. T=3.50

Buy a day return to Brighton.

For walk directions click here. For GPX click here.

I have had a special request for this walk, which we have done before at this time of year without problems. See above for a breakdown of the length, which is not as long as it looks. This is a breezy walk over the South Downs, first approaching them on the flat, then climbing up onto the escarpment and then crossing their middle to arrive unexpectedly in the very heart of Brighton via Kemp Town Racecourse.

Chalk downland paths can be a bit slippery if it has been wet: watch out for that.

The Swan Inn in Falmer makes a reasonable lunch stop. Earlier in Stamner Park there is a nice and popular cafe. Between you cross the Brighton University campus, a slightly surreal experience after the wilds of the downs. In Brighton tea options are everywhere, but Google the location of the Mock Turtle Tea Shop for a special treat.

Trains back from Brighton: oodles of them: you can just turn up and go. Trains from Falmer to Brighton go every ten minutes and take ten minutes.

3 comments:

Tony said...

Then there's the Evening Star (a Darkstar brewery pub) close to Brighton Station...

Walker said...

N=26 on this walk. The weather was w=windy-and-wet. Not continuous rain but it started about an hour a half into the walk and was on and off thereafter. The afternoon crossing of the downs was fairly bleak - or refreshing, depending on your point of view. It was a good Atlantic wind, at least, fresh clean ocean air.

One or two may have stopped for lunch in the Stanmer tea room but most of us went to The Swan. This pub is a real 1970s timewarp but I think we enjoyed our sausage and chips, toasted sandwiches and baked potatoes (OK, perhaps baked potatoes are not that 1970s). I calculate that 11 got the train from Falmer and 15 (nine pub lunchers and six sandwichers in two separate groups) carried on to Brighton.

I hear two had a paddle there in the stormy sea and that the waves at the pier end were magnificent. Three of us went to the Mock Turtle Tea Room, which has rather discordant new furniture but the same fabulous selection of cakes. Then we trekked uphill to a very nice party given by a walker, with fine food kindly cooked by his lodger. A fine and friendly day out with plenty of what the Danes call “hygge”.

Anonymous said...

Three of us who took the train from Falmer also had tea at The Mock Turtle. I am afraid this old institution has not kept up with time. It is a bit dated. Walking along The Lane, there are no shortage of nice tea rooms, so worth trying one next time.

The Swan Inn is a very basic pub - the most dissapointing item is Fish and Chips with Fish straight from the freezer. Pity, given it is so close to the seaside. One would thought this is the one dish they should be a master to cook....