Pilgrims Way – Day 5

• Start: The Reigate Manor Hotel, Reigate, Surrey
• End: The George and Dragon, Westerham, Kent
• Distance: 28.50 km
• Time: 09 hours 10 minutes 59 seconds

We were worried about the amount of time today’s walk would take and so we had a hasty breakfast at the hotel and hit the road at just after 8 am.

It seemed as though the route was determined to throw obstacles in our path! The route was blocked less than a kilometre in!

That sorted, we moved onto the first of todays climbs. The route was quite a hilly one with several named climbs and 687m of climbing in total.

The first distinct climb was Reigate Hill, finishing in a lovely panorama.

As we started down we came across this interesting millennium sculpture in the grounds of Royal Alexandra and Albert School. Each stone represents a hundred years and is carved with quotes from different important figures from that century including St Anselm and Shakespeare.

Leaving the school we arrived in Merstham, taking refuge from the rain in the first of only two churches today, St Katherine’s.

Interestingly, this marks the first church on the route whose historic patron was the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than the Bishop of Winchester, indicating that we have moved eastwards.

Shortly afterwards we arrived at what would be the dominant theme of the day, the M25.

With very little respite, our constant companion today would be the sound of the motorway, varying from hum to roar depending on proximity.

The next hill, just outside of Merstham, know locally as ‘The Paddocks’ provided a great view of the surrounding countryside and the M25.

At the end of ‘The Paddocks’ is the named rise, White Hill. There were no particular vista’s on the route here, but there was a tower, which looks for all the world like a medieval ruin, but is in fact a folly, created by landowner Jeremiah Long in 1862 in memory of his dead son.

Next up was Gravelly Hill. Here we had lunch (purchased from the Esso garage in Reigate, I won’t go into details 😐) This is known as the Caterham Viewpoint. Not sure why, as the view is towards the south coast and Caterham is north!! It did however provide great views of the plain to the south and, of course, the M25.

The descent of Gravelly hill passed through some lovely ancient woodlands where we scarce saw a soul, but the constant traffic rumble did tend to break the illusion that you were walking through a rural idyll!

After a few bumps, the next significant climb was to the top of Tandridge hill, no view at the top of this one sadly, but on the descent through the Oxted Downs we had a great view of, the M25, and also Oxted 😀

Eventually, we reached the final climb of the day, past Titsey Park, to the top of Botley Hill, the highest point in the whole trip. Sadly, again there wasn’t much of a view, just a sign and a car park 🙁

We descended again, reaching Titsey church, where we had a cup of tea on a bench.

The church was pretty but fairly unremarkable, the original 12th century building having been demolished by the owners as it was too close to their property and the current church being rebuilt in the 1860’s. Apparently, the most amusing thing about Titsey was the trace our circumnavigation of the Titsey Estate made on Garmin, Craig certainly though so! 🙄😀

Finally, we descended once more over the M25,

and then walked beside it for a few kilometres leaving Surrey behind.

Just metres from the M25 we found this lovely quarry lake, a peaceful haven inches from the juggernauts.

We reached Westerham just over 9 hours after beginning our day and are staying at the George and Dragon, an old coaching inn in the town centre.

This charming hostelry is actually part of the Fullers empire though it tries to hide the fact. The building is interestingly Georgian and the restaurant surprisingly good. I had a really nice piece of Sea bass Schnitzel with brown crab and samphire butter and Craig had rolled pork belly with ratte potatoes with apple sauce and a pork jus. Delicious!!

Tomorrow we continue our foray into Kent!