July 14, 1991: Haslemere to Witley Station
Gavan and Karin at the start of the route in Haslemere
I began the Greensand Way, a route sponsored by Surrey and Kent Councils, in the summer of 1991. Having completed a number of London-based routes, the South and North Downs Ways, the Ridgeway, and the London Countryway, and having walked beyond London’s orbit on the Thames Walk, there remained only one other local walk in progress at the time, the Weald Way. But the Lees, due to arrive back in London on July 15, had not missed a section of this project and I wanted to wait until they could walk too. So I was faced with choosing an entirely new route. I chose the initial ten-mile stretch the Greensand Way because Gavan and I, recently returned from Scotland, would be accompanied by a novice walker – my cousin Karin Marcus from Stockholm.
Karin and I arrived, with Toby the Schnauzer, at Waterloo shortly after 9:00. We bought day returns to Haslemere and some sandwiches. I sent Karin to get some crisps (forgetting about the language barrier) and she came back with three dairy crisp chocolate bars. Gavan had been wandering around the station for some time. He bought a ticket from a machine and we got some coffee and doughnuts. The Portsmouth train left at exactly 9:25 and shortly before 10:30 we were in Haslemere.
For me this was something of a sentimental journey for my very first London country walk, in the spring of 1973, had begun here. I had used a route suggested in a little red Nicholson’s guide and had walked up Gibbet Hill and peeked over into the Devil’s Punch Bowl. On that occasion, I had experienced a great deal of difficulty figuring out where I was at any moment, and the worst of the problems had been getting started from Haslemere Station. Eighteen years later the mystery was just as great. The map in the guidebook didn’t really help people starting at the station, and I wasn’t precisely certain where we were on the OS map (somehow feeling that we must be facing north when leaving the station, when in fact we were facing south). We stumbled about and finally I asked a station guard. He pointed us in the right direction, confirmed by my compass, but we used a lot of guesswork, following a park path labeled “Town Centre,” to emerge, after walking in an easterly direction, onto the High Street – just south of the old town hall.
I posed Gavan, Karin, and the dog on the landscaped road divider in front of the building and we then retraced our steps along the High Street to a spot, just beyond the Georgian Hotel, where a plaque signaled the start of the Way. Route finding was much easier from now on, with good instructions in the guidebook prepared by Surrey Council. We followed a tarmaced footpath behind houses to Church Lane. Then we crossed the railroad line and headed uphill, eventually turning into a footpath between hedges – where the dog could run free at last.
In one form or another this path continued uphill for some distance. The latter stretches were rather muddy and eroded and Karin was worried that trees would fall on her head because we could hear the buzz of a nearby chainsaw. In the event no one was flattened and we emerged onto a motor road and passed a number of quite substantial houses. Horses were heading our way and I was happy, just opposite a house called Little Scotstoun, to find the GW, quite well sign-posted, heading north through wood and heathland. We discovered a lone lady walker puzzling over her map on this stretch. It was an odd map because, though it had some physical features, it had no names for anything. She had to get to the youth hostel (only a short distance really) “before dark,” and was quite relieved when we were able to show her where – on her map – she was actually standing.
We passed several crossing tracks and obtained our first views of a number of large houses on the heights of Hindhead. Then we descended to a stream and climbed up again, getting ever closer to the A3. Just before reaching Hindhead I was certain I smelled a whiff of marijuana in the woods. Karin, who was doing very well as a walker, said she felt like a beer. “You got it,” I promised. It was just going on 12:00 and in a few hundred meters we hit the highway and the Devil’s Punch Bowl Hotel.
There were some tables next to the car park so I stationed myself here with the dog while the others went in for lager. Three ploughman’s lunches were brought out to us in a few minutes and we had a very nice noontime repast, with Toby getting some biscuits and some surplus cheese. I suppose the view wasn’t too grand, a Hindhead car dealership, but we would soon be back in much better surroundings. Gavan drank only one pint as we sat in the occasionally bright sun.
After lunch we used a track to carry us eastward to Gibbet Hill. Blocking the route at the outset was a hippy caravan and we had to wander among these folk (one girl wearing rings in her lips!) in order to get out onto the heath again. I no longer had doubts about the earlier smell of pot. Hindhead Common was very beautiful today; the clouds had returned and there was a nice breeze. Visibility was excellent and the heather was in bloom. There was a very wide track to follow and there were lots of people about. (I suspect that much of this territory, incidentally, was later seriously altered by highway construction that tunneled through the hills – leaving the Punch Bowl auto-free.)
Just before the summit we re-entered woodland. An American lady and her daughter came up behind us, accompanied by three Golden Retrievers. One of these chaps headed straight for the muddy ruts of the track and lowered himself into the slime. Then a second one did the same. “You can tell they’re brothers, can’t you,” the lady said to me, “Just as well tonight’s bath night.” There were other dogs running across the open space atop Gibbet Hill, which was about the only part of my 1973 itinerary that seemed familiar. We paused for a while here and then headed downhill from the cross and onto the old Portsmouth Road.
It was easy to imagine stagecoaches rattling up this track. I had a Pythonesque vision of Arthur and the Pennine Gang staging one of their unique holdups – “Your lupines or your life.” We reigned in Toby once when a red jacketed horseman approached, but the dog wasn’t bothered. On our left were dramatic views of the Punch Bowl, visible from little lookout points atop the bank that ran alongside our track. At the bottom of the hill we crossed the busy A3 and continued forward into damp woodland, making steady northerly progress.
We passed several houses and walked along a country road for a while, then took to field boundaries after Hedge Farm. When we reached another motor road the others shot by our turnoff but I had just had a peek at the guidebook, which Karin was following for us today, and called them back. The GW sign was fastened to a gate at a field entrance opposite Smallbrook. Unfortunately some of the easterly route to Thursley Church was very badly overgrown and the nettles lashed at the legs of Gavan and Karin, both of whom were wearing cut-offs. Toby discovered a horse and a foal in the next field and let us know what he had found, but otherwise he was not agitated. We had to put him on lead as we neared the church because a farmer and his wife were just releasing some shorn sheep from a pen in the next field. Their duck stood outside his condo and viewed his tiny pond.
We reached Thursley church at about 2:25. I took a picture of the sundial on the bell tower and considered our options. The trains from Witley called at 28 past each hour. We had 3.75 miles to go. If we kept up a brisk pace we could make it in time for the 4:28 – so we didn’t dawdle or visit Thursley village itself, but continued forward on roads and tracks until we reached another choked footpath – which we had to fight our way through in order to reach the dual carriageway of the A3.
We crossed this at a trot and I called for a small rest in the corner of an open field. Toby got some water and we drank my bottle of Bitter Lemon. The sun was out again, and although the temperatures were only in the 70′s, it was quite warm. We then continued on a road around Cosford Farm. We had to pass beneath a cottage, with a marvelous plant-filled solarium, and along the edge of a pond. When the signpost indicated another nettle-rich passage Karin actually took her shoes off, put her legs into the arms of the sweater she had been carrying around her waist, and – shoes on again – marched with some protection the few meters needed to reach the bottom of a steep path.
We climbed up this, ignoring several crossing tracks, and at the top crossed a field to a road. After walking along a field edge for some distance we were required to climb a stile and descend to a road. Unfortunately two local dogs, alarmed at this intrusion, were growling at the foot of the stile. “Go on,” I commanded. “I’m afraid,” Karin responded. “I was speaking to the dogs,” I said. The owner of these animals called them off, but they reappeared as we crossed the road. Now we were in a quandary over the next stages of the route – across several small fields via low stiles.
A kissing gate led us to a broad track and we followed this until it was necessary to abandon it for a route along a boundary bank. We were soon on a rhododendron-covered hillside and there were a number of inviting paths. We chose the one leading steeply downhill and were relieved when we found a kissing gate at the bottom. A chap was walking by with his shotgun and his dog as we cleared the gate and began some road walking along the handsome wall of Pine Lodge.
We passed a row of houses and the A286 and continued eastward on a climbing track. Near the crest a footpath lead us in a southeasterly direction along field edges, with several inviting alternatives that we disdained – keeping to the higher ground. It was now nearing 4:00 and we were very conscious of the train time as we reached a road. The route, along roads and tracks, was much more straightforward now, and I could tell as we turned into our final lane, that we would make it to the station on time: “We’re going to make it, dudes!” Indeed, we crossed the rail line and turned south to reach our platform with some ten minutes to spare.
Toby had a drink on the platform and Karin ate her ham sandwich. The train arrived at exactly 4:28 and we found seats easily. Everyone dozed a bit on the return trip to Waterloo, where Karin and I said goodbye to Gavan. He had enjoyed himself very much on this trip, as had Karin and it was nice to be able to offer some variety to her London visit. Shortly past six we were back in Maida Vale, and headed for our reunion with Dorothy and Karin’s daughter Lena – who had been active in the West End while we had been slogging through rural Surrey.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: