A gorgeous sunny day, and a jolly crowd leaving the Onslow Arms at Loxwood to embark in the good ship Zacharaiah Keppel for a cruise on the Wey & Arun Canal.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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What a transformation! Only a few years ago this 23-mile rural waterway, built in the early 19th century to provide the missing transport link between London and the South Coast, lay tangled and forgotten among the woods and fields of the Sussex/Surrey border.
I set off along the towpath beside the olive-green canal, picturing its sleepy working life. The railways stole its modest trade – coal, lime fertiliser, timber, horse dung, corn – and in 1871 a rather mournful-sounding Act of Abandonment closed it. A century of slow decay ensued, of leaking water and encroaching vegetation. Then in the 1970s, local enthusiasts began to unearth and restore London’s lost route to the sea. It has taken 40 years and untold sweat, but the dream is coming true – you can boat three miles of the Wey & Arun already, from Drungewick Lock past Loxwood to the fabulously named Devil’s Hole.
A shady path under the willows, with few birds singing in the noon heat. Triffid-like, towering umbrella leaves of giant hogweed, green reeds whispering, a soporific midday trance over the still canal. I left the Wey & Arun, turning north past the big creamy cattle at Drungewick Hill Farm into a stretch of cool woodland, then across wide clover fields full of drowsily buzzing bees. There was time for a pint in the Sir Roger Tichborne pub at Alfold Bars, and a read of the extraordinary story, displayed on the pub wall, of Arthur Orton, the Tichborne Claimant, This 19th-century chancer almost got his hands on the Tichborne baronetcy, and the land and money that went with it, before he was unmasked and thrown in prison.
Out into a rolling landscape. The donkey at Tokens Farm came up to the gate to have his dusty muzzle patted. Woods, cornfields and a shady bridlepath where a big dog fox went trotting before me, swinging his black-tipped brush. In Gennet’s Wood I picked up the old canal once more, choked with a pink froth of Himalayan balsam, and followed it until water began to gleam in the bottom of its overgrown channel. A scurry of concrete-pouring contractors at Southland Lock, a burst of purple loosestrife around the Devil’s Hole, and I was spinning out the final half-mile along the Wey & Arun in the sunshine of a sleepy afternoon.
Start & finish: Onslow Arms PH, Loxwood, W. Sussex RH14 0RD (OS ref TQ 041311)
Getting there: Bus (www.arrivabus.co.uk) Service 44 Guildford-Cranleigh
Road: Loxwood is on B2133 between Alfold Crossways (A281 Guildford-Horsham) and Wisborough Green (A272 Petworth-Billingshurst). Car park down track beyond Onslow Arms car park.
Walk (7½ miles, easy grade, OS Explorer 134): Follow canal towpath east for 1½ miles; cross Drungewick Aqueduct (060309). Left over bridge; along road; at top of hill, left (060312, fingerpost), skirting right of Drungewick Hill Farm. Farm track into trees, where path forks (058312); ahead (not right) here. In 150 m, right (fingerpost) past pond. In 150 m, keep ahead (not left) at fingerpost (056312). In 100 m, left (fingerpost) along wood edge track. In 150 m, track curves left (056314), but keep ahead (fingerpost) for 400 m to cross Loxwood Road (055318).
On along bridleway (fingerpost) for ½ mile. At wood edge, left (056326); in 100 m, right off bridleway on footpath (fingerpost) into fields. In 300 m pass pond; left along stony track; in 50 m, right (054329, fingerpost) along fenced path. In 200 m, through gate; cross field and on (053332; gate, fingerpost) into trees. In 100 m cross track, and on (fingerpost). In another 100 m you reach a 4-way crossing (052334, 4-finger post). Here you cross a north-south bridleway and continue south-west along the Sussex Border Path (SBP). To do this, go left for 5 m, then right along SBP.
Follow SBP for 1 mile to Alfold Bars and Sir Roger Tichborne PH. Left at B2133 (037333); in 100 m, right down Oakhurst lane. Follow SBP for ¾ mile past Oakhurst Farm (033328) into Gennets Wood. At track crossing by a pond (028325), left off SBP (bridleway fingerpost) to follow towpath of overgrown Wey & Arun Canal for 1⅓ miles back to Onslow Arms.
NB – Online map, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk. Click on Facebook “Like” link to share this walk with Facebook friends.
Lunch: Onslow Arms, Loxwood (01403-752452; www.onslowarmsloxwood.com) or Sir Roger Tichborne PH, Alfold Bars (01403-751873; www.thetichborne.co.uk)
More info: Horsham TIC (01403-211661); www.visitsussex.org
Wey & Arun Canal Trust: 01403-752403; www.weyandarun.co.uk
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com