9.35 train from London Bridge (9.49 East Croydon) to Balcombe.
For walk directions, map and GPX click here.
It is (nearly) the longest day of the year: soon you will be wishing you had made better use of the long evenings. So I wanted to pick a walk that makes good use of the daylight. This one has the advantage that it has a tea stop before its end at Wakehurst Place. So you can have a leisurely tea and then finish the walk in the lovely evening light….
** There is an issue with a footbridge early on in the afternoon to which we will have to find a workaround. There are three options:
- One proposed by another walker is appended to this post as a comment.
- Another (my preference) is to inspect the bridge and if it is impassible to do a map-led loop to the east via the village of Highbrook. This would add no more than 2km to the walk and might be quite pretty. Plus we have plenty of daylight to finish the walk!
- Skip Ardingly village altogether and do the direct route to Wakehurst Place. This reduces the walk to 16.7km (10.4 miles). If you do this you have to lunch at the Gardeners Arms. It is worth pointing out that there is an event taking place today (the Big Scooter Rally) at the South East of England Showground that you have to pass through to get to the Gardeners Arms. I don’t think it affects rights of way but the pub might be even busier than it normally is as a result.
Assuming you don’t do the direct route to Wakehurst Place, lunch is either at the Ardingly Inn or the cafe next door (the latter open to 2.30pm). I have not tried the pub since it was renovated but it seems to do food all afternoon.
The cafe at Wakehurst Place is open until 5.30pm. In Balcombe there is the Half Moon pub for refreshments.
Trains back are at 25 and 55 past
#2026-06-20T09:35. t=swc.22
3 comments:
This is a workaround to the closed footbridge suggested by a walker:
After the Ardingly Inn, turn left to carry on up Ardingly High Street, following the main directions as far as step 149. But don't take the right turn instructed in step 149. Instead, stay on the High Street for an extra 400m, then turn right into Cob Lane. Follow Cob Lane as it bends left, then 50m after the bend veer left and uphill following a signed bridleway. In 300m, just before a couple of cottages, turn sharp right at a path T-junction. You continue to follow the bridleway through the pine forest, then woods and then scrubbier growth. In 900m (coords 51.063582, -0.080387) you reach a junction where the closed footpath joins from the right. This is the T-junction mentioned at step 169. Continue straight on here (you would have turned right here if you'd arrived by the closed path) and resume the walk directions at step 170.
The Thameslink ticket is the best option, for anyone who may not already be aware.
I never thought I would say this, but w=mostly-cloudy weather was a welcome relief today, given that the searing heat that would have resulted if the clouds had parted for more than occasional short periods. It also meant that the trains (ultimate destination Brighton) were less busy.
At first I thought it was just two of us on the walk, but 16 coalesced on the platform. One car driver sneakily joined us during the first section of the walk, thinking we had not noticed, and another walker turned up a bit later having got the next train. So n=18 in all.
In the GPX era all this winter and summer walk stuff is so OVER. So is outlining options in walk posts. Everyone just followed the lines on their screens. This led most of the group to do the (winter) section under the Ouse Valley Viaduct, while only a few of us did the “proper” summer route. But no matter. I actually wrote this walk to have interchangeable sections, so it was being used as intended.
Quite a few people decided to lunch at the Gardener’s Arms without telling the rest of us. That meant they were pretty much locked into doing the short cut to Wakehurst Place in the afternoon. Those of us who did make it to the Ardingly Arms found it closed - yet again. Permanently, said a local, and due to become an Indian restaurant. I wash my hands of the place. Also of the cafe next door, which despite being less than half full and having three members of staff said they were too busy to do any more food. So stuff ‘em. They got no money from any of us.
The others I was with - five or six of them - decided to walk the mile or so along the main road to the Gardener’s Arms. Thence presumably to Wakehurst Place via the shortcut. But the way of the walk author is a hard and lonely one! I had come to check the afternoon of the summer route and in particular reports of a blocked bridge, so I got a samosa and a bag of Big Hoops from the Post Office and set off to do that alone. I had my lunch in a flowery field while butterflies flitted and birds sang all around. Who needs pubs?
So for probably the last time on an SWC outing (since it no longer has a viable lunch stop…) I did the lovely summer afternoon route, a beautiful Wealden walk, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The bridge I thought was the one at issue was fine: a later one, at the bottom of the big valley before Wakehurst Place, was not, but was easily circumvented by crossing a shallow stream via strategically placed logs. It might be tricky in winter when water levels are higher: but this is a summer walk, right?
I got to Wakehurst Place glowing with the unaccustomed pleasure of having been the person in the group who did the LONGEST WALK!! The rest of you were all feeble shortcutters!!! (Those who did the shortcut to visit the house or garden at Wakehurst Place are excluded from this derision…)
One walker had kindly waited for me at the Wakehurst Place cafe and two more joined us. We had a nice al fresco tea, putting the world to rights, and then walked the very pleasant last section into Balcombe. We had a drink at the pub, where a fifth walker joined us, having visited the Wakehurst Place gardens (which is how I know some people did this). We walked the back lanes to the station, where three got into cars and two of us caught the 18.55 train.
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