Graham Pearcey

Walk number 1 (11 miles / 4.50 hours):

• Park at The Percy Arms, Chilworth, Surrey, GU4 8NP. Food is served until 3:00 PM and again from 6:00 PM Mon-Sat only. No food available Sun except for those who've booked in advance.
• Leave the pub car park next to the electricity sub generator opposite Percy Cottages. Pass the school and take an immediate right onto a narrow, in places muddy, footpath alongside it. Go between fields and cross a footbridge. Immediately beyond the footbridge, turn left, and follow this track all the way to the green-painted iron gate at the end. Turn right along the road and cross the Tillingbourne river to meet Halfpenny Lane.
• Turn left at the Halfpenny Lane sign, proceed less than 10m and bear right onto a rocky footpath that climbs a hill. At the end turn left along the road for less than 10m until you come to a large field. Enter the field. Bear left and follow the clear track along the left-hand edge of the field until in the ‘dip’ you reach a fenced-off stable and metal barn on your right. Then maintain direction along the hedged track ignoring side turnings until the path ends abruptly at Manor Farm.
• Go right and immediate left, keeping the hedge to your left. At the second field maintain direction along the path, eventually catching a glimpse of Guildford Cathedral over to the right. On reaching a quiet, residential road, don’t cross the stile but turn right before it. At a T-junction in Chantry Wood turn left and continue until Chantry Cottage is in front of you. Pass to the left of the cottage, then immediate right to follow the broad track uphill as it skirts dense woodland. When the track starts to descend and bears left into a farm, continue straight ahead on a narrower track with a faded sign reading North Downs Way (NDW). When the woodland ends, the sandy path passes between fields. When you reach a crossing of paths, continue ahead on a path again marked NDW, keeping straight through woods. Another track merges from the left and you then ascend to meet a road.
• Turn left and in less than 30m turn right onto a narrow climbing path alongside Southernway Cottage. Keep ahead on this path as it becomes increasingly sandy, and follow the church sign uphill until you reach St Martha’s Church. Maintain direction outside the graveyard wall to pass the church on your right and then join a wide sandy track, with trees to its left and spectacular country views to its right. Descend steeply via either the NDW or the wider sandy track to the right. After merging with a bridleway from the right, leave the NDW by bearing right at the next junction. Pass an information board and then a ruined building before picking up two “Self-guided trail” signs to follow a path which leads to a small car park.
• Turn sharp right just before the car park, following another “Self-guided trail” sign, to cross over Guildford Lane and join a bridleway which begins next to a 30mph traffic sign. Follow the bridleway until it crosses a footpath, traverses a field and descends through a wood to reach Water Lane.
• Cross the lane, and follow a path with steep banks, past houses and left of a gate, which is padlocked to exclude vehicles not walkers. When the bridleway turns left by a cottage, keep straight ahead (signed “Silent Pool Shere”). You have reached the half way point of the walk.
• At the next fork, bear right into woods (signed “Footpath”) to reach the blue entrance gates of a quarry. At the gates, go straight ahead onto a narrow, unmarked path. Cross a stile to proceed along the left-hand edge of a field, and another stile to reach a gate by the A248. Cross the road and turn left at the post-box (with very narrow aperture) to follow the pavement. On reaching the next junction, re-cross the A248 and proceed a short distance along the A25 to a field gate on your left. Here carefully cross both carriageways of the A25. Pass Silent Pool Cottage and the Sherbourne Farm entrance on your right, ascend to a gate but don’t go through it. Instead, take the narrow, sometimes overgrown path called “The Foxway” on your right, which proceeds with a field to its left and trees to its right until it starts to climb a very steep hill.
• The path eventually becomes less steep as it approaches a crossing with a bridleway which is another section of the NDW. Turn left onto the bridleway, and shortly fork right (uphill) which returns you (after some time) to the A25, where you turn right to pass the entrance of The Barn coffee shop. Carefully cross the A25 and pass a wooden sculpture to take a grassy route to the car park. Walk to the farthest end of the car park, admiring the wonderful views of the Surrey hills on your left as you go, and continue along a stony path. After the rugged stump next to a bench on your left, continue on the path as it becomes shady under trees. At a staggered junction with a signpost, take the obscure path on the left through trees, marked “Self-guided trail”. After a short distance bear left, also marked “Self-guided trail”, to emerge into a car park by a bench.
• Proceed straight ahead on a waymarked path into the trees. Follow the waymarkers first right and then left to descend to White Lane. Cross the road and climb steps (marked NDW) to a path that runs parallel to the road and once even touches it. Eventually emerge onto Guildford Lane next to Keepers Cottage. Take the rising path between the cottage and its garages, and climb to a cross-paths. Here turn right, marked “Self-guided trail”. The main path is fairly obvious until after about ten minutes it swings left uphill to join a higher path by another “Self-guided trail” sign.
• Turn right. A stone in the middle of the path is inscribed “G.B.B. 1933.” Beyond the stone, turn sharply left onto a narrower steep path that leads back to St Martha’s Church. Keep to the right around the outside of the graveyard wall until you come to, first, a single bench and, then, three benches together.
• Between the one bench and the three, take the sandy path that descends to the tree-line. Cross a bridleway and continue very steeply downhill. Pass the sprawling Chilworth Manor buildings on your right as the path levels out. At a cross-paths, ignore the ‘permissive footpath’ to the Percy Arms, instead turning left along the narrow, often muddy bridleway to the valley floor and continuing straight ahead when you merge with a farm track.
• Cross the Tillingbourne by a bridge and continue over a second bridge. Turn right just before a third bridge, in order to pass an information board that’s visible from the current track. Pass the ruins of mill buildings on your right, and continue to a clearing and to the triangular junction near picnic tables that you saw earlier. Turn left and retrace your steps to the Percy Arms pub.

This route was last walked on 9 August 2010, and the directions were accurate then. Please e-mail me if you find any errors, if you would like a copy in Word format, or if you would prefer a version that starts and ends at Chilworth station.

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