Length: Main Walk, with shorter afternoon 14.25km (8.9 miles). Or full Main Walk 16.8 km (10.4 miles). Toughness: 2/10
10:07 Southern Uckfield service from London Bridge (East Croydon 10:22) arriving at Eridge at 11:03
Return trains from Eridge are at xx:50
Buy a return to Eridge (Kent)
A pleasant walk through fields and woods with Harrison's and Eridge Rocks and the Spa Valley Railway along the way. The shorter afternoon route omits Harrison's Rocks but you'll still pass Eridge Rocks. If you want a longer route you could do the longer afternoon route after lunch.
Refreshment stops:
Groombridge:
Eridge: At the end of the walk The Huntsman pub is a stone's throw from Eridge station.
Please remember that these walks are self led: for full details and to download your copy of the directions see the L=swc.120 page. Use the clickable map on this walk's web page to see and print just print the directions for the route that you want to do.
4 comments:
When I last did this walk in March 2024, there were a couple of very muddy stretches. I don't know if these will be the same this weekend but they can be avoided by taking a different routes from The Crown pub and a bit of road/lane walking.
The first stretch was after you cross the stone brigde from Groombridge Place and take the path diagonally to your right, there's a ~20m stretch between barbed wire fences that was flooded.
The second was was a longer ~50m stretch between barbed wire fences. We came across this after taking the alley beside the school and crossing the railway line to reach Aytton's Wood.
Entering Birchden Wood, I stayed on the higher main path which runs through the centre of the woods, eventually joining the published route. This was a firm path and a pleasant route.
For info, both of those flooded stretches are on the longer afternoon route and are particularly bad because you're stuck on a narrow fenced footpath. But even if you choose the shorter afternoon there will be other muddy stretches, as with any High Weald walk in winter.
Have booked a table at the crown for 12:45 - they have a big party arriving at 1:30….
N=20 at the station. A w=dry-sunny-but-cold day. A fair bit of mud and quag on the way round, but guess what readers, it was frozen, so it didn’t matter. There was only one major obstacle and that was the railway bridge before Groombridge. It were flooded weren’t it.
After being told by locals it was calf-deep, there was a reluctance to go through. Some did and some, who stayed close to the left hand side got through with dry feet. Others were sent on a wild goose chase after being told by a local there was another crossing 200 yds to the left. There wasn’t. Some resorted to a more direct route scrambling up the embankment across the tracks and down the other side. Scary stuff. Luckily, no sign of the Fat Controller.
Groombridge was eventually reached. Some stopped for lunch in the Crown but the largest party was in the Junction, which seems to have upped its game a bit. Here we were joined by walker n=21 who had started from Ashurst. The fastest reached Eridge in time for the 15:50 . By the time the slowest got there, there was a sizeable number ensconced in the Huntsmen. Most got the 16:50. A grand day out.
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