Section 23 (Return)
Irons Bottom to South Nutfield
Walk Details
| Map | Os Explorer 146 (Dorking, Box Hill & Reigate) |
|---|---|
| Distance/Time | 6 Miles/ 3Hours |
| Start | The Three Horseshoes, Irons Bottom; limited on road parking or ask at pub. |
| Comment | An interesting and varied walk skirting former industrial areas and new developments south of Redhill. Also making use of a section of the Greensand Way with woodland and quiet countryside in between. If the Sidlow Bridge section is flooded (very rare) a diversion up the A217 to Dovers Green and back down Lonesome Lane is needed. Away from summer make sure you have plenty of daylight hours. |
Walk Instructions
With ‘The Three Horseshoes’ on your right, walk back down the road used on the outward route. Do not turn off it onto any footpath but continue to the far end and a T-junction with the busy A217 main road by a church.
Turn left past a service station. Cross the road with care and keep on over Sidlow Bridge. Immediately over, look for a stile by a fieldgate on your right. Cross into a field and go ahead on grassy track eventually passing through a hedge and dropping down to a footbridge.
Cross and immediately turn left through a metal gate. Walk along with the stream on your left towards a clump of trees. Reach and cross a stile by a metal fieldgate. The stream turns left at the trees. However keep straight on up the slope to a stile at the end of the hedge ahead. Cross into a field and head over the field to a stile at the far side leading to a road.
Cross the road to a footpath and continue on along an enclosed path to a wooden kissing gate. Enter the wood proper and keep forward on a clear path ignoring all paths off right and left. At the far side go left over a footbridge, then immediately right through a kissing gate. Follow the hedge on your left to reach a main road.
Cross the road (A2044) and turn right for a few metres looking for a wooden gate leading to a rough track going under an old height bar. Walk up this path (an old industrial road) and over a rise and on down to Earlswood Lakes. Do not cross the bridge between the lakes but turn right to follow the edge of the largest lake on a clear asphalt then gravel path.
At the end of the lake, by a corner of a golf course, climb a set of narrow concrete steps to a raised path (part of the Greensand Way again). Turn right on this raised path and follow it along the edge of golf greens to drop down to a main road.
Turn left up the road looking for a track going off right across a golf course to a railway bridge (golfers go straight across the road to another section of the course; it’s possible to go around the edge to the railway bridge but it’s not a public right of way). Go under the railway and keep ahead up the road passing between new housing. Cross straight over a crossroads and soon keep on up a gravel path at the side of a new house. Keep forward to a T-junction with another path in front of a stream.
Here turn right and pass a pond on your right (ignore the access stile). Soon reach a stile into a field. Bear diagonally right upto the top side of the field and go on with a hedge on your right, to a gap on the right. Go through the gap into a field and cross, diagonally left, on a grassy track, to a junction of ways at the far side.
Ignoring a path off right, cross the stile ahead and go up a path enclosed between wire fences. Cross a stile at the top onto a concrete track and keep on in the same direction to a wooden kissing gate into a field. Bear diagonally right down the field, keeping right of two power cable poles, to a stile into a wood.
Follow an obvious path through this small wood to a broad asphalt track at the far side. Turn left on this for a few paces then turn right off it into a field. Cross the field past a substantial tree to a gap at the far side. Go through the gap and keep ahead with a hedge on your left.
This is a section used on the outward route. Keep on to a stile emerging onto Kings Mill Lane. Turn left down the road passing business units to a crossroads at the bottom. Turn right for a short distance looking for a narrow enclosed footpath going off left.
Follow this path to a railway crossing and enter a field at the far side. Go straight down the field edge to a gate into the field below. Turn right and go diagonally across a long narrow pasture, passing then converging on buildings over on your left. Reach a stile and fieldgate in the far corner by the end building.
Follow the fence on your left to a stile in a hedge ahead and cross into a recreation ground. Keep on in the same direction with a hedge on your left all the way up the recreation ground to exit at the top end onto a main road.
Turn right along the road, past the village shop, to reach the entrance approach to South Nutfield Station. Continue down and under the railway bridge to return to the ‘Station Pub’ and the start of the section.
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