Backup Only

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 2 December 2018

Sunday Walk: Dorking to Reigate

Length:7.8 miles 12.5 km SWC Walk 16
Difficulty 3/10
This walk part-follows the Greensand Way and the River Mole through the picturesque villages of Brockham, Betchworth and Skimmington. The church in Betchworth dates from 1080. More importantly, it was used as a location in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
There's bit of a climb near the end of the walk, then down you go, down, down, down , to the grounds of Reigate Priory.
Trains: Get the 10:02 Dorking Train from Waterloo (Clapham Jct 10:11) arr. Dorking Main 10:52.
Return at xx:06 from Reigate direct to Victoria. There's also an xx:17 changing at Gatwick Airport for a Thameslink train (Bedford direction) to St Pancras - a longer journey but beats waiting an hour.
Get a return to "Dorking stations". This covers Reigate.
Lunch:
The suggested pub is the Dolphin Inn  in Betchworth  01737 842288 phoning advised.
The Royal Oak in Brockham is an earlier choice, the Skimmington Castle on Reigate Heath a later one.
Tea:
The cafe in Priory Park is reached first. Open till 4 in winter.
The Tea House, 17 Church Street,  01737 226561 closes at 3 on a Sunday.
The nearby Cafe Rouge at 1 Church Street 01737 223700 is a better bet, being open all day.
Directions here
T=swc.16

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

weather supposed to be better Sunday so anyone walking?

Anonymous said...

Setting off for Dorking sometime soon

David said...

It was a w=really_mild_day_with_intermittent_sunny_spells_and_a_light_breeze, so not surprising that n=14 walkers started off from Dorking. There had clearly been a lot of rainfall in the area, and the River Mole was running higher than usual, as could be seen when we first crossed it, shortly after leaving Dorking. Good progress was made right up to Betchworth where six walkers managed to get a table in the supposedly fully-booked Dolphin Inn. Other walkers chose to eat their sandwiches in or close to St Michael's churchyard. Two walkers, feeling it was too early to eat at 12.15, pressed on towards Ricebridge and Skimmington. The directions from the metal kissing gate by the Snowerhill Road sign were a little misleading and should read as follows: "In 300 metres, the main path enters a wood, continuing downhill across a wooden bridge and then uphill for 80 metres to emerge through a metal kissing aget into an open field". The rest of the directions (from where you have to bear left by a two-armed signpost on an indistinct path) are fine, apart from the fact that all the stiles have been replaced with kissing gates in the first two paragraphs of the Betchworth to Ricebridge directions. In the third paragraph, the one-armed signpost is in fact two-armed. When we got to Rice Bridge, we discovered that the River Mole had flooded (fortunately, not extensively). We were able to get across, albeit with a some difficulty, but we had to skirt around the flooded gully to rejoin it about 100 metres later on, after the path emerged from the water. We arrived at Skimmington at about 1.30 and received a very warm welcome from staff at the Skimmington Castle pub, where we were unconditionally invited to sit at one of their outdoor tables to consume our sandwiches. The rest of the walk was uneventful and we reached Reigate station in plenty of time to catch the 3.06 train back to London.

Anonymous said...

Just to add to David' report, the church in Betchworth was holding an "alternative Christmas tree" festival and was also serving hot drinks and home made cakes. One walker took an alternative route after lunch, via the
viilage of Buckland, which is home to the Pheasant pub and the historic church of St. Mary the Virgin. This might be worth exploring as an alternative afternoon route to Reigate.