The Downs from Chichester

Sat 14th Mar 2015

Walk Details:

Event Type
Group Walk
Region
Southern England
Local Group
London
Distance
19ml.
Start Time
10.00
Route
Start Chichester stn. Dep 08.32 Victoria

Leave by the trackbed of the former Midhurst branch, onto the Downs, country pub at lunchtime

General Notes
Assistance dogs only
Start and Finish

Entry Details:

Cost

Walk Report

The Downs from Chichester, Saturday 14th March 2015
19 walkers, 19 miles - leader Peter Aylmer
19 walkers from London LDWA, with a few also from Surrey and Sussex, joined Peter for this walk around the South Downs.
We kept up a good pace on the old rail line out of Chichester until cutting up through a large metal-detecting party onto the Downland section, taking the short pull up the scarp slope to the north end of Bow Hill ridge. From here there's a long descent through a broad dry valley to Stoughton, passing the pub there before a lower hill-section to the Barley Mow at Walderton. We'd phoned ahead with the news that roughly half of us were eating, and they kept a table - good food, great beer choice, prompt service, perfect!
In the afternoon we took a little loop round part of the Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve, past Tolkeinesque yews so old they can't be dated, across the open ground of the vale itself, and off-piste (deliberately!) through a dark coppice where even the shortest of the walkers had to duck. From there, the bridleway over Stoke Clump took us back - on what at first seemed like a bee-line to Chichester Cathedral - towards the rail line, and home.
Photographs by Peter Aylmer, Keith Lane, Bola Baruwa and Jane Rosoux

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