Length: Main Walk 16.5 km (10.2 miles). Toughness 4/10. Shorter options are available, starting or finishing at Cowden, which is the stop after Hever on the same train.
10:07 Uckfield train from London Bridge (East Croydon 10:22), arriving Hever at 10:49
Return trains from Ashurst to London are at xx:56. Buy a return to Ashurst (or Cowden if you are finishing there).
There are some nice bluebell woods in this quiet part of the High Weald. After two hours of walking through remote hills and wooded valleys you'll come to the Fountain in Cowden, an attractive Harvey's village pub popular with walking and cycling groups. It's got a conservatory and a large back garden, but call ahead if you want to be sure of a table inside. For a picnic, the church is probably the best spot - it's to your left as you reach Cowden, before you turn right towards the pub.
The lunch and tea places are not far apart but you can extend the afternoon section with an extra two miles along a river valley if you wish. Your reward is a tearoom at the Perryhill Orchard Farm Shop, which also sells a tempting range of local ciders (which you can taste beforehand). Note that it's a fairly hilly 4 km onwards to Ashurst station and at least an hour so time your departure carefully or bring a book to read while you wait for its hourly trains.
You'll need to print the directions from the L=swc.175 page.
3 comments:
Trains pass at Ashurst, so the southbound and northbound trains arrive at the same time. Don’t get the wrong one….though if you want a pub stop at the end of this walk, you could get the southbound one for one stop to Eridge: the lovely Huntsman pub is just 100 metres from the station and you would have about 45 minutes to have a drink before the next train north.
this comment is copied across from the walk's comment page:
WalkOnBy
Mon 05-May 10:11
n=14 (and one well-behaved dog)
w=sunshine-and-cloud
Very pleasant walk in very green landscape. The Walks Inspector was there from the start, adding his customary je ne sais quoi to proceedings. Most sandwiched in the Cowden churchyard and then had a drink in the pub garden; three dined inside and seemed happy with the fare. One, in an homage to Mr M Tiger, accepted a generous percentage of one of the diner's tasty chips. Four were later seen sunning themselves on the outdoor seats at the farm shop. Five got the train just before 4. Thank you to the inventor and the scheduler for a lovely day out.
To add to WalkOnBy's report, I thought there were at least 16 at the station and halfway through the morning we swept up two newcomers, making n=18 on a w=sunny day. The early starters had been following the written directions and without prompting praised them rather too effusively, giving rise to mutterings that the walk author had bribed them to show up and give their 5* rating. [An opinion that was emphatically not supported by the SWC stalwart we encountered later, vainly trying to find the path to Cowden.]
A few of the pub lunchers decided to break off and head for Cowden, but most pressed on to Ashurst and enjoyed a tea stop at the Orchard Tea Room. Along the way we had exchanged pleasantries with a flock of Zwartbles sheep who trotted over to greet us as we approached Bolebroke Castle, but their good nature was not shared by a herd of white cattle in a field we had to pass through later; they began charging around rather alarmingly, causing a few of us to scramble over fences and devise a safer route. However, we all made the 5pm train with 10 minutes to spare.
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