Time Out Country Walks near London Volume 1
Walk 16 : Balcombe (round walk)
The gardens of Nymans & the ruins of Slaugham
| Length | 17.5km (10.8 miles), 5 hours 30 minutes. For the whole outing, including trains, sights and meals, allow 9 hours 20 minutes. |
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| OS Landranger Map | No.187. Balcombe, map reference TQ 306 302, is in West Sussex, 7km south-east of Crawley. |
| Toughness | 5 out of 10. |
| Features | This is a walk full of small delights: a nature reserve and lake with Japanese pagoda down by the stream below the gardens and park of Nymans with its part-ruined manor house; a relatively gourmet inn for lunch in Slaugham (pronounced 'Slaffam'); a churchyard in Slaugham with an 800-year-old yew tree some 10 metres in circumference; the ruins of Slaugham Manor; then a walk down to the River Ouse - suddenly three Roman columns and an arch in a field in the middle of nowhere - and later up through fields and woods to the fine old village of Balcombe. Julia Bardos warns that at one point after lunch "you have to cross the A23 on foot, which is like crossing a motorway". |
| Shortening the walk | The bulk of the walk is after lunch, and the last part is the least interesting in some ways, so you could go as far as the Victory Inn in Staplefield and catch a bus to Haywards Heath or Crawley. Alternatively, you could call a taxi earlier in the day from the lunch stop in Slaugham, or, after visiting Nymans, from the Red Lion pub in Handcross. There are buses from Handcross to Crawley or Gatwick every couple of hours. |
| History |
The Japanese pagoda-style aviary in the nature reserve was designed by Lord Snowdon, part of whose country estate this is. Nymans tel 01444 400 321) is a National Trust garden - Ludwig Messel, who bought Nymans in 1890, sought to show that a more exotic range of plants could survive outdoors in Sussex than previously thought. Its manor house was part-gutted by fire in 1947, when the Horsham stone roof, huge slabs of it, fell through three storeys, and the firemen were hampered by bitterly cold weather - ladder extensions and standpipes froze. Nymans is open March 1st to October 31st (the cafe and shop open also November to December 24th). Admission is £5, children £2.10, groups of 15 and over £3.50 per person. St Mary's Parish Church, SSlaugham, has a Norman font made of Sussex marble with a fish symbol on it. There is a brass in the church to John Covert, who in his will left 200 marks to his daughters, even if they married without consent to men without land - but only if the men 'have virtue and cunning which seemeth as good as 100 marks' worth of land'. Slaugham Place, now in ruins, was the residence of the Covert family, who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries held land extending from the English Channel to the banks of the Thames. |
| Lunch | The suggested lunch stop is the cafe inside Nyman's (see above). If this is closed, out of season, the suggested alternative is the Red Lion tel 01444 400 292) in Handcross, which serves food all day, 7 days a week. The previously recommended Chequers Inn tel 01444 400 239) at Slaugham, which serves food from midday to about 2pm daily, now serves lunch - 3 courses - for a minimum price of 20 pounds. Food that needs cooking can be slow in coming. The inn does not serve drinks without food. There is also a pub in Staplefield, later on. |
| Major Updates | Detour to avoid crossing a motorway (the A23) [details] |
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| Warning | This text was taken from an older edition of the book, and is a little out of date. Please check the updates for this walk. |
Walking Instructions
For a map and detailed walking instruction, please see Time Out Country Walks near London Volume 1
