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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 11 July 2020

Saturday walk - Tunbridge Wells Circular

Length: 17.5km (10.9 miles), 19.3km (12 miles) or 23.8km (14.8 miles)

Meet at the entrance to Calverley Grounds (see ** below), by Tunbridge Wells station, at 10.45am. We will do a socially-distanced meet up there and split into groups of no more than six.

(The 9.45 train from Charing Cross - 9.48 Waterloo East, 9.54 London Bridge - to Tunbridge Wells, arriving 10.39, would get you there in time.)

** Calverley Grounds are right at the start of the main walk, just across the road from Tunbridge Wells station, if you leave it via the exit that goes directly up from the arrival platform (ie NOT crossing the footbridge to the main exit on the other side of the line).

Since we have to walk in groups of no more than six, I thought we might as well have a walk with various options to suit various abilities.

- The shortest walk (17.5km/10.9 miles) involves taking a slightly shorter start to the main walk: otherwise you do the main walk as advertised

- The main walk is 19.3km/12 miles

- A longer walk of 23.8km /14.8 miles is also possible via Groombridge

All of these options are outlined in the walk directions, or on the map or GPX for this walk, one of which you will of course bring with you.

Refreshment options

At the end of the walk, tea or other drinks should be available in Tunbridge Wells, either in the Pantiles or the town centre. The High Rocks Inn just before the town is NOT yet open according to its website.

For lunch, you are best advised to bring your own, but if you want to try for a pub lunch, the George Inn in Frant 4.3 miles into the main walk is open, as is the Nevil Crest and Gun in Eridge Green 7.1 miles into the walk. Both will be table service only, and probably booked out, but the Nevil Crest and Gun has a large garden and says on its website these tables will not be bookable, but first come, first served: so you might be lucky. See here for their full rules and regulations, which include a stipulation that those eating inside are from two households only. Table service seems to apply in both places even if you only want to buy a drink

On the longer walk, Groombrdge has the Junction Inn and Crown. The Crown is closed 2.30pm to 6pm and says it will only do meals (rather than just drinks). See here for more. The Junction Inn does not have any coronavirus-specific information on its website.

Trains back from Tunbridge Wells are at 09, 21, 39 and 51 past. T=3.19

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please take instructions with you to be independent and not needy.

Walker said...

As on all our walks, everyone must bring the walk directions, GPX or map, yes: links in the walk post.

Walker said...

N=18 on this walk on a day of W=sun-and-cloud. Two elected to do the short start, three or four did the long walk in reverse to maintain social distancing, and the rest of us split into three groups to do the main walk.

Clearly given the split, the rest of this account will be somewhat partial and prejudiced (apologies to Jane Austen). My group got lost in several places, but this was not the fault of the directions, as we had all forgotten to bring them, and none of us were very good with the GPX. But in due course we got to Frant, where the George looked utterly empty (though perhaps had some customers in a garden not visible to us). We in any case carried on past it to the village green, where two of the earlier groups were lunching, well distanced from each other. We joined them, ditto.

After crossing Eridge Park three of us stopped at the Nevil Crest and Gun, where it was easy to get a table in the garden for drinks, albeit that they came rather slowly. The reverse walkers were at another table 30 metres away, but we eschewed them religiously. I am told by someone who went in for the loo that it was fairly empty inside. People are reluctant to eat indoors, it seems.

Back in Tunbridge Wells the Pantiles has more outside tables than an Italian piazza. Almost every establishment was offering drinks there, with table service. Again the drinks were a bit slow to arrive, but the wait was pleasant - “the nearest we will get to a Mediterranean holiday this year” as one of our number remarked. We had more drinks, this time courtesy of Sainsbury’s, on the train home.

Note to future posters: this would make a good heather walk. There was lots of it in Broadwater Warren, but as yet only a tiny bit of bell heather was out.