Setting off from home on a frosty Sunday afternoon with no particular route in mind, I found myself doing my regular saunter southbound on the Downs Link from Southwater. However, instead of following the usual route of the railway, I deviated off the main drag via a bridleway just past Read More
Tag: history trail
High Weald Hike: Slaugham & Staplefield
Kept it nice and easy and very local for the first hike of 2021, venturing just a 15-min drive from Horsham to the High Weald. I parked in Staplefield (more about the village and its famous residents later), just by the cricket pitch, which proved to be a good starting/finishing Read More
Findon, Clapham Woods & The Long Furlong
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve driven the stretch of the A280 known as ‘The Long Furlong’. The single carriageway road cuts through a beautiful valley and is the most direct route connecting the A24 London to Worthing road with routes to the coast and the A27. Read More
Ghost Train to West Grinstead
Murder on the Orient Express, The Ghost Train, The Wheel Spins, 4.50 From Paddington, Strangers on a Train… who doesn’t love a good train mystery!? I certainly do… and what’s more, I’m lucky to have a ghost railway on my doorstep! Yes, my little village, Southwater, once had its own Read More
Harting Down, Kingley Vale & The Old Admiralty Semaphore Line
Fresh from some fantastic hikes of epic distances in the Peak District, I was compelled to push myself even further distance-wise, and devised an ambitious 26km (that’s a shade over 16 miles in old money) perambulation on the South Downs just north of Chichester. A route that would take in Read More
High Peak Hike to a Plane Wreck
Day two of my trip to the Peak District began early. I was out of the hotel before 8 a.m. as I had a sixty minute drive through the glorious Derbyshire Dales to reach High Peak country. My mission today was to find a plane wreck… macabre, I know, but Read More
Eyam: The Original Lockdown Village
Whilst on my travels in the Peak District I made a quick detour via Eyam village a.k.a the ‘Plague Village’, which seemed rather apt a place to make a visit in 2020, annus Covidis. The story goes that, in 1665, the bubonic plague arrived in Eyam from London, via a Read More
Dovedale Stepping Stones & The Nine Ladies
It’s August. By now, we should be deep into the UK motor racing season – which we kind of are, but Covid has meant that meetings at which one can actually spectate are few and far between. ‘Hooray! Thank heavens for MSV and the British GT Championship’ shrieks the ardent Read More
The Devil’s Punchbowl
I was in Conan Doyle country today: the gorgeous Surrey heathland of Hindhead Commons and the intriguingly-monickered Devil’s Punchbowl. I arrived mid-morning and it was already busy with the lockdown-induced stir-crazy picnic crowd – indeed, they were already sprawled out on the grass scoffing pork pies (not that there’s anything Read More
Chatley Heath & Wisley Airfield
I’d been meaning to visit the old Admiralty semaphore tower at Chatley Heath for ages, but, little did I realise when I set off this morning, I’d be walking the length of a 1900m disused airstrip and lunching by a beautiful lake. Chatley Heath, near the village of Ockham in Read More