Oxshott to Cobham via Painshill walk

Surrey heaths, the Mole valley and the opportunity to visit “England's most elegant 18thC landscape garden”.

History

This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.

Date Option Post # Weather
Sun, 11-Sep-22 Sunday Walk – Oxshott Circular 8 started cloudy finished sunny
Sun, 17-Mar-19 Sunday walk: Surrey heaths and landscaped gardens 7 bright sunny and generally very pleasant day
Sun, 12-Nov-17 Sunday Walk – [New] Oxshott, Cobham & Painshill Park 14 partly sunny
Sean
Sean
Extra Walk 305 – Oxshott Circular

Length: 16½ km (10.3 miles), with shorter endings possible. Toughness: 3/10

10:00 Portsmouth Harbour train from Waterloo (Clapham Jct 10:09), changing at Surbiton (arr 10:23, dep 10.32) for the Guildford via Cobham train which should be waiting on the adjacent platform, arriving Oxshott at 10:42. [NB. This train starts from Wimbledon at 10:14]

Trains back from Oxshott are hourly at xx:13. If you want to give yourself the flexibility of a shorter ending buy a slightly more expensive return to Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon rather than Oxshott (see below; trains back at xx:10).

Ruined-Abbey-Painshill This walk around Surrey's wooded heaths and the Mole valley would not claim to be the most scenic one in the SWC repertoire; its original purpose was to provide the opportunity to visit “England's most elegant 18thC landscape garden”. If you're willing to fork out the £10 entrance fee (it's not a National Trust property), a circuit around Painshill Park will certainly compensate for any perceived shortcomings in the rest of the walk (though there should be some colourful heather on Oxshott Heath and Esher Common, visited on one of our summer evening walks).

The most conveniently-placed lunch establishment is The Plough, but this “steak, seafood and cocktail restaurant” on the outskirts of Cobham looks even more upmarket than I recall from previous visits. The Medicine Garden nearby is reportedly closed for restoration, but might have a pop-up café. Failing that, there are several coffee shops and cafés on Cobham's High Street, plus Mr Hamilton's Tea Room for visitors to Painshill Park.

If you spend time visiting Painshill (or just want a shorter walk) the directions include an alternative ending to Oxshott station and an even shorter one to Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon. These both miss out Esher Common but go past Cobham Mill, “the only surviving fully working watermill in Surrey”. This is one of the few days of the year when it's open to the public (from 2-5pm with free admission, although the volunteers who run it would doubtless appreciate a purchase from its small souvenir shop).

Note that there are no refreshment places near Oxshott station (and probably Cobham station too on a Sunday), so try to arrive in good time for one of the hourly trains.

As the group might fragment in the afternoon because of the places to visit and alternative endings, please make sure you bring the directions from the L=swc.305

  • 12-Sep-22

    

    

     8 and a small dog started out. One disappeared early on but, apparently, resurfaced later in a tearoom somewhere. The weather started cloudy finished sunny Dry underfoot.

    We had arrived at the Cricketers by 12 but, having each just been given an apple by a kindly local apple-picker, this was deemed too early for lunch. (no, I don’t understand either) Luckily, I’ve been practising not sulking so I was able to maintain my cheerful countenance all the way to the next pub, the Plough. They were short staffed and weren’t doing walk-ins so 2 just had cider. 2 had. coffee (said to be good), others went to the churchyard. We all met up there later and went inside and looked at some old stuff. Here we diverged, 2 visiting Painshill Park, the rest diverting for a look at Cobham Mill. We were just too early to visit the mill (2-5 Sundays) so we pressed on.

    On reaching the motorway, there was another parting of the ways, 3 going round Eaher Common and 2 not.

    A very pleasant walk with lots of big trees but one drawback - no tea place near the end to await the hourly train. We sat in the sun on a bench in Oxshott Heath instead. Most of us got the 1613.

  • 12-Sep-22

    The two Painshill Parkers met up with the missing walker in its tearoom. All three did the full 5km circuit of the landscaped grounds, with their artfully crafted vistas. Over tea'n'cake some advanced mathematics suggested that we could bypass Esher Common on the main ending and make the 17:13 train, which we did comfortably.

    There were plenty of dog walkers about on Oxshott Heath and it's a shame that no-one has seen fit to open a pop-up café near the station to serve them. I guess there are worse places to hang about for an hourly train but it's not ideal (especially if you've been persuaded to forgo that second pint of cider, as Mr M Tiger lamented).

  • 12-Sep-22

    The description of this walk undersold it. It is at least as good as several of the Book 1 walks, even without Painshill Park. I enjoyed it and would do it again.

Chris L
Oxshott Cicular
Length: 16.3km(10.3miles) Toughness: 3/10

10:00 Portsmouth Harbour train from Waterloo, changing at Surbiton (arr 10:22; dep 10:33) to arrive at Oxshott at 10:43.

Return trains are at xx:14 (journey time 45 minutes).

Heaths, woodland and water meadows are all encountered on this walk, whose main feature is the beautifully restored gardens of Painshill, “England’s most elegant 18th century landscaped garden” (adult tickets £8:00). Please note that Painshill closes at 4:00pm (last entry 3:00pm).

Suggested lunch pubs on the outskirts of Cobham (both fairly expensive) are The Cricketers (01932 862105) and The Plough (01932 589790). Another option nearby is The Medicine Garden restaurant/café. Directions to all of these are in the Walk Directions.

The walk directions and other information can be found here.

T=swc.305
  • David
    17-Mar-19

    After a continuously windy week, it was rather surprising that only 7 walkers turned up on what was a bright sunny and generally very pleasant day for walking. Perhaps this was because the walk is hardly challenging (I would give it 2 out of 10 on the toughness scale). And it only intermittently has a rural feel to it. In spite of that, the walk has the obvious attraction of Painshill and some truly impressive houses on the edge of Cobham, so if you want to see how far removed your lifestyle is from those who live in this wealthy part of Surrey, this is the walk to do. We stayed together as a group only as far as Littleheath Common, just after crossing the Guildford line for the second time. At this point, there were two different views about the direction to take so, instead of the directions instructing the walker to "turn half-right", it would have been better to say "take the middle path of three". Three of us did that; the other four took the righthand most of the three paths. We didn't see them again after that! At lunch, one of our number decided to make for The Plough, while we ate our sandwiches in St Andrew's churchyard and pressed on. We completed the full walk in time to catch the 3.14 train back to Surbiton and miss the mid-afternoon showers.

  • David
    18-Mar-19

    Just to add a brief note that I very much enjoyed the variety of the walk: the lakes and ponds, heathland, landscaped gardens and sumptuous properties (apologies if my report suggested otherwise). There was one slightly waterlogged field to contend with, but otherwise it was a nice easy stroll for those who like it that way.

New Walk – Oxshott Circular
Length: 15 km (9.3 miles), or 12½ km (7.8 miles) to Cobham. Toughness: 2/10

10:02 Guildford (via Cobham) train from Waterloo (Vauxhall 10:06, Clapham Jct 10:12, etc), arriving Oxshott at 10:42.

Trains back from Oxshott are hourly at xx:11. If you want to give yourself the flexibility of a shorter ending buy a slightly more expensive return to Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon (see below; trains back at xx:08).

The main purpose of this new walk is the opportunity to visit Painshill Park, which claims to be “England's most elegant 18thC landscape garden”. However, you'd need to pay the entrance charge of £8 and November might not be the best time of year to appreciate its many charms, so by all means just treat this as a regular walk around Surrey's wooded heaths and the Mole valley (plus lots of expensive-looking houses in this affluent neighbourhood).

If you want an early break for refreshment The Cricketers has a nice location on Downside Common, which is also a good place for a picnic. You'll get there quite early and The Plough is more conveniently placed for a pub lunch, half an hour further on; The Medicine Garden nearby looks like an interesting alternative, but I haven't tried its café or restaurant. There are plenty more refreshment opportunities in Cobham's town centre but nothing near Oxshott station, so make sure you've had your fill if you take this ending.

If you do visit Painshill keep an eye on the time – it's easy to spend longer there than you intend. Sunset is at 4.18pm and you'd need to leave there well before 3pm to get through the heavily-wooded Oxshott Heath before dark (and catch the 16:11 train). The Cobham ending is shorter and much more manageable in failing light.

You'll need to print the directions from this temporary New Walk page. A fairly high proportion of the walk is on hard surfaces, so choose comfortable footwear. T=swc.305
  • Anonymous
    17-Nov-17

    14 partly sunny .