Another refreshment option is the Ide Hill Community Shop, which has a small cafe. https://www.idehillshop.com/

I walked from Penshurst station to Ide Hill today, Tuesday 25th. The bluebells are pretty much at their best. A huge area of oilseed in full flower below Ide Hill and again towards the end of the walk. Paths are still fairly slithery and gloopy: don’t wear your party shoes….

The walk poster will have to cry off today because of a dental emergency - sorry folks. Hope you have a good walk

11 turned out on a bright cool day for this scenic walk with great views and varied terrain, bluebell woods, wild garlic, fading daffodils, primroses, blossoming hedgerows and several large fields of shoulder high rape, brilliant yellow which we walked through on squelchy but manageable paths. We all had picnic lunches outside the cafe at Chartwell, used the facilities there and carried on to Ide Hill where we stopped for tea and cake at the excellent community shop and cafe. We had been warned of very muddy paths on the route down to Penshurst by a local walker but it wasn't too bad and we were able to skirt around the worst bits. The slowest four got to Penshurst in time for the 17.55 train to Tonbridge where we caught a fast train to London Bridge. A good walk which felt strenuous despite no major ascents. Thanks for posting Sandy and sorry you missed it.

Intend going.

Realised I was going to miss the 9:30 from London Bridge, so opted for a train from Charing Cross and consequently started the walk 45 minutes late. Caught up with the group at lunchtime, 4 of us. (The 9:30 had been cancelled so they'd caught a train to Edenbridge Town.) A good day out weather sunny all day aside from a brief drizzle early pm.

2 of us off the train; not too surprising give the lateness of the walk post. Had not seen walking colleague for ~10 years so went into a rapid instant chat, 10 minutes on remembering to quit talking - which we did for the remainder of the walk, besides lunch at Carpenters Arms and tea at Café Papillon, Oxted. Sunny and calm throughout.

8 off the train. The weather sunny with cloud and then some hail and rain at the end . The group splintered pretty quickly due to some confusion on the way forward. Some had old instructions or knew the way anyway, and there was some discrepencies with the GPS. There were at least four discreet groups of people walking who never saw each other again after lunch, so I can't comment on their experiences. The larger group of three enjoyed a picnic just past the pub. There was even a lovely table and chair set out at a footpath junction that would make a great picnic spot just before lunch. Tea was enjoyed at the pub at the end (very large tea pots!) whilst drying off after the deluge. Then a mad dash to the train. Great walk! I hope everyone else enjoyed it too.

~Karen

As Karen says, those who had downloaded the GPS recently had different directions from those who had kept the file from a year ago, and neither were consistent with the written directions at various places.

Four ate together at The Fox & Hounds, which, according to the walk notes, "serves good enough food". That wasn't my opinion. I am fairly sure that nearly everything had been extracted from the freezer, with a neighbouring table served a very unappetising supermarket style burger.

Hi,

It seems the information for this walk contains the information for another one. Please check and replace it.

Many thanks.

Regards,

Sorry about that, link now correct.

PS. Train ticket: when this walk was posted a few weeks ago the advice was to get a return to Penshurst and I'd agree with that. Although they're on different lines, Hurst Green is on the way to Penshurst if you change at Edenbridge (walking between its two stations). And a Penshurst return is also valid on the alternative route back via Southeastern services from Tonbridge.

I really enjoyed the South Downs walk on Easter Sunday and I’m just wondering if I could make a case for some longer, challenging walks? As well as walking with SWC, I’ve started walking with Blackheath Ramblers. Last Saturday they had an 18 mile walk, and over the next five Saturdays they have 15, 21, 26, 19 and 17 mile walks. From a quick glance at the upcoming SWC walks this Saturday, they are 13, 10 and 12 miles long. Last weekend the longest SWC was 15.9 miles long. I’m thinking there must be some demand for a few longer walks, especially now that the daylight hours are getting progressively longer? Hoping to start some informed debate on this? Thanks Monique

Nearly every week Thomas G offers a walk of the kind of length you describe. You have picked one of the rare weeks when he is not doing so.

Having said that, we aim to cater to all walk tastes and as a poster I get many more complaints about walks being too long than I get about them being too short. 10, 12 and 13 miles seems like a good range to me.

But as I say, look out for Thomas G's walks: he is definitely of your way of thinking and will doubtless be pleased to hear from you.

Just as an anecdotal example, last Saturday's Ashurst to Eridge walk was 13 miles, but with an option of doing a shorter circular walk of 9 miles. Of the 18 walkers who turned up, 11 decided to do the 9 mile version, with 7 of us walking the full 13. I would say this is fairly typical of my experience on non-Thomas G SWC walks when a choice of walk lengths is offered.

Thanks for the comments so far, interesting that from your experience people seem to prefer shorter walks. Just thought I'd add that there were 33 people on the Blackheath Ramblers walk I did recently. The walk leader said that they often get that many people and that the number of walkers on their walks is steadily increasing. Not that I think 33 is a particularly comfortable number when it comes to crossing stiles, pub lunches etc.

8 on this walk. The weather was dry mild and calm . A really nice and quite challenging walk with varied scenery. Lovely woods with masses of bluebells and wild garlic starting to appear, although neither are yet in flower, as well as plenty of pleasant open sections. We heard a Mistle Thrush and lots of Skylarks and at one point we saw (and just missed stepping on) a grass snake on the path. A bit of mud but not much really and my boots were fairly respectable at the end. Most of us visited 3 of the 4 pubs en route. We hadn't called in advance and The Fox & Hounds at Toys Hill said we'd have around an hour's wait so we continued to The Cock Inn, which was open served nice, hot meals. The Little Brown Jug, perfectly located just opposite the station, provided pots of tea while we waited for the train. Thanks for posting.

Looks like I'm free tomorrow so I may come along, although I suspect it might be a bit of a mudbath.

10 walkers off the train, 2 more off the same train but doing a different walk by themselves, and 2 others half an hour behind, so 12 in sunny and warm weather. Fine far views in the fantastic weather (much better than forecast), lots of woods, plenty of up and down, immense amounts of bluebells (not out yet), some wood anemones (out) and lots of mud (unsurprising after recent snow and rain). The faster of the two laggards caught up with the group before lunch, the slower of the two though, somehow, managed to get to The Fox and Hounds before anyone else. Great pub, good food, fine beer (under new mgmt apparently).

The picnickers had moved on in dribs and drabs, so we only joined up with most of them right at the end at The Little Brown Jug. A train was due to leave in 10 minutes, but we decided to stay at this very nice pub for a a while longer. 18.01 train, connecting neatly to the fast 18.09 at Tonbridge. Brilliant day.

bluebells explained: http://theconversation.com/bloomageddon-seven-clever-ways-bluebells-win-the-woodland-turf-war-74086

Is it certain that the appropriate ticket to buy is a day return to Penshurst? Both trains are Southern, but the two lines are quite different and diverge soon after East Croydon. Does anyone have any idea about this?

According to traintimes.org.uk, you can travel to Penshurst via Hurst Green

Thanks. I can see that now. The stop after Hurst Green is Edenbridge Town. From there it's just under a mile to Edenbridge, which is on the same line as Penshurst.

19 on this walk including three who missed the train and materialised later. The weather was mainly sunny after a somewhat cloudy start: a lovely spring day. Oodles of bluebell woods, some full out, others less so. Also some fields covered in dandelions and, in the later stages, some bright yellow fields of oilseed rape.

The always rather snooty Fox & Hounds declined to take orders from those of us at the back of the group so we pressed on to the Cock Inn in Ide Hill, where we secured a nice table outside in the sun. We were told food would take an hour to come but it took half that time. My lasagne was only visible under a microscope, but otherwise the portion sizes looked good. I supplemented my diminutive rations, indeed, by finishing off the meals of everyone else.

The last third of the walk was a dreamy descent into lovely countryside. I went a bit off piste in search of more oilseed and found tea at the Bough Beech Visitor Centre, later rejoining the group at The Little Brown Jug.

Not much more to say except that it was a perfect day out at one of spring's perfect moments with lots of nice chat about this and that. Happy days.

To be fair to the Fox & Hounds, it was Easter Saturday and they were very busy. I many be wrong but I don't think we had called them in advance.

I did this walk on Sunday, instead. I noticed a number of minor differences between the walk directions and the actual walk. One amendment that needs to be made, just after the approach to Bushy Wood Place, in the paragraph starting "[!] In 200 metres (and 80 metres before a white house ahead), turn right along a car-wide track..." The paragraph continues "In 25 metres go over a stile to the right of a metal fieldgate". It should be amended to "In 25 metres go through a gate to the left of a metal fieldgate".