9.50 train from Victoria (9.57 Clapham Junction, 10.10 East Croydon) to East Grinstead, arriving 10.50, changing there for the number 270 bus to Forest Row at 11.05
(Slugabed option: taking the 10.50 train and the 12.05 bus, you could get the bus all the way to the lunch pub, arriving 12.27, and just do the 10.1km/6.2 miles afternoon of the walk.)
For walk directions, GPX and map click here
I have picked this walk in the hope that it might find the heather in Ashdown Forest at its best. There are two large areas of it in the afternoon of the walk. Otherwise the walk offers a nice mix of scenery, including fields, woods and heathland.
Lunch is at the isolated Red Lion in Chelwood Gate, which serves food all afternoon and has a large leafy garden. As mentioned above, it is on the 270 bus route. If you want to get a bus back to East Grinstead after lunch, they are at 55 minutes past the hour.
You may be able to get tea mid afternoon at the Ashdown Forest Centre, which also has displays about the nature in the area. Otherwise Forest Row at the end of the walk has lots of options - see the walk home page for details.
After tea, if you wish you can do a 5.5km/3.4 mile extension up the old railway line to East Grinstead - a pleasant and undemanding walk.
Or get the 270 bus at 03 past the hour to 18.03, then 19.46 OR the 291 bus at 31 past to 18.34, then 19.51 to East Grinstead station. Or there is a 500 bus which also seems to do the same route.
Trains back from East Grinstead station are at 06 and 36 past the hour.
#2026-08-15T09:50 T=swc.23
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16 off the specified train, joined by one who got a slightly later train (of which more later…) and one who met the bus in Forest Row. Number n=19 got the train an hour later and caught us up at the lunch pub.
The weather was w=sultry-sun-and-cloud, the air being very sticky. I always enjoy the variety of scenery on this route and the morning passed very pleasantly, discussing the topics of the day. We got a bit strung out but group cohesion was generally good.
Two or three went to have sandwiches on the heath: the rest of us had lunch in the very pleasant garden of the pub. Ordering at the bar was a trifle slow, but the food came reasonably quickly.
After lunch three took the bus: the rest of us carried on across the heath where the heather was in full flower, but maybe not as abundant as I expected. Later we passed some birders looking for honey buzzards and a noisy wedding at the Ashdown Park Hotel.
A party of us stopped at the Ashdown Forest Centre, where the tea and cake offering is unchanged but a lovely large deck with tables, chairs and creaky sunshades has been installed, with a fine view out over the heath. There was no ice cream however, due to “the cows having stopped producing milk due to the drought”. (You heard it here first…)
After tea more heather and magnificent views across Weald. Then the long descent to Forest Row along the edge of the golf course.
Some had already got a bus to East Grinstead to go to evening events. Seven (?) of us went to the micro-brewery and had drinks on its terrace. Four got the 18.03 bus, three the 18.35.
Once at East Grinstead station we found a mysterious extra train to London Bridge leaving four minutes before the Victoria one. This turned out to be a refugee from the Uckfield line, trains on that route being diverted to East Grinstead due to emergency engineering works. This provided all three of us with a faster route home, so we grasped it greedily. This route diversion was also presumably the one got by walker number 17 this morning.
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