Guildford to Godalming along the Wey Navigation

5.2 miles
1 Hour 45 minutes

I park the car at Guildford Station then make my way to the river. After just a few hundred yards the hard concrete of central Guildford gives way to quainter buildings and a greener landscape.

On past the old White House pub and the sculpture of Alice and the White Rabbit. Lewis Carroll lived in Guildford during the later years of his life and died here on 14 January 1898. One-hundred-and-thirteen years ago this week. Apparently he’s buried just up the road at The Mount Cemetery but that’s for another day.

It’s a very cold January morning with a heavy frost all around, lots of ice on the path and a cloudless blue sky. In fact I spend most of the walk dazzled by the sun as it shines low and bright in the southern sky. If I were walking the other way, from Godalming to Guildford, the sun would be on my back. As it is, I think I should have brought some sunglasses with me and most of the pictures I take are snapped looking back along the river with the sun behind me.

The first lock I pass I Millmead Lock. There are three more between here and Godalming: St Catherine’s, Unstead and Catleshall. This is the Wey Navigation, maintained by the National Trust, and all of the lock s are in working order. But there are no canal boats moving on the river today; the only traffic I see is a double scull just outside Guildford, near to the bridge that now carries the Pilgrims’ Way over the river. Up until the 1960s, St Catherine’s Ferry took people across the water. The bridge was built in 1985.

Further upstream I pass three World War 2 pill boxes along the river bank, I watch a heron swoop low and long over the field and woods, and find four hungry swans looking for a handout. Unfortunately I don’t have anything with me but make a note to take something suitable for ducks and swans next time I go walking near water.

Information signs along the river tell me about some of the now defunct industries of the area that once used the river to transport their raw materials and finished goods. They included leather tanning, timber and paper production.

At of end the walk I come to the Phillips Memorial Cloister. I read the sign: “The people of Godalming, supported by donations from most parts of Great Britain, from Europe and North America, built this Memorial Cloister to honour a local hero, JG “JACK” PHILLIPS. He was the chief radio operator on the SS Titanic, who refusing to save himself, remained at this post sending out the vital distress signal, as the great liner went down in mid-Atlantic , on 15 April 1912.”

I note that the small pond in the middle of the garden is frozen hard and wonder about the meaning of the word “ironic”.

The railway station is just around the corner but there are no trains today due to weekend engineering works. The ride back to Guildford on the replacement bus service isn’t half as pleasant as the riverside walk.

30th January 2011.

I did this walk again today but I started at Godalming and walked to Guildford. I started just after dawn and it was so cold my ears hurt. There was a thin covering of ice on some stretches of the canal but when the sun came up over the hills and trees to shine on the water and frost it was very pretty. I did it in 1hr 30 minutes today.

Over Epsom Downs from Tattenham Corner to Walton on the Hill (and back again). Sunday 14th November 2010

Ordnance Survey Map 145. 5 miles.
1 hour, 40 minutes.

A grey and misty morning but at least the rain held off.

Over the racecourse and across the Downs.

This is the final straight towards the Grandstand and the finishing post. That's the Grandstand there, lost in the mist. When we got into the middle of the Downs I reckon we could see just 200m in any direction. 

 No great views today.

The pond at Walton on the Hill.

The Bell. Secluded. Cosy. Closed.

This is a Coal Post. I'd never head of them before. Apparently it cost so much to rebuild London after the Great Fire that a tax was imposed on coal brought into London. Originally this tax was collected at the Port Of London but in 1861, as road and rail transport increased, iron posts were erected around the city to mark the boundary of the area where the levy was payable. Once the debt for rebuilding London was paid off the money went to pay for drianage improvements. Eventually the tax was scrapped altogether in 1890.

 

After tramping through the woods we come back onto the open Downs.

Another Coal Post at Tattenham Corner. Come to think of it, on a clear day you can see London from around here. And in 1861, one of the first signs of the nearby city would probably have been the smoke from its chimneys.

So, we managed to walk five miles over Epsom Downs on a Sunday morning and not see a single horse and rider! Still, I made it home in time to join the Remembrance Day service.

The rain held off until 11 o'clock on the dot.

Ash Vale to Brookwood via the Basingstoke Canal. Sunday 7th November 2010

(Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 145)   6 miles. 2hours, 3 minutes. 

 

I take the 07:56 from Brookwood railway station to Ash Vale. The line runs parallel to the canal for a while (although I couldn’t see it from the train) then follows a pretty straight line across land that is mostly turned over to military use and therefore out of bounds to Sunday walkers.

But there isn’t much to see here, except what I’d describe as “heath land”. Then suddenly I am surprised to be in a railway tunnel. The map (an Ordnance survey map, of course) tells me that I’ve just passed under “Tunnel Hill”. (“Not imaginative, but accurate, Corporal. It’ll do.Write it down.")

I wonder what it was called before the railway was laid and before the military took over the land and mapped it out for themselves. An hour later, I will walk alongside the Deepcut Locks, a stretch of the canal that was named for the depth of its dug course. Later this name was co-opted by the military for the adjacent Army barracks. So it seems this is a landscape shaped by and named for human excavation. Which, on reflection, is almost amusing as this walk begins and ends next to the vast Brookwood cemetary..

Once at Ash Vale, the route begins by passing back under the railway bridge that we have just come over.

The Basingstoke Canal was completed in 1794 and ran 32 miles or so from Basingstoke to the River Wey and thence on to London. It was never a sustained commercial success. The railway, slayer of slow canal connections, is never far away as I walk along this stretch. I guess that canal builders and railway engineers seek out the same level ground.

Along the canal it's still and quiet. Until about 8.20 am. Then the Army starts war-gaming on the nearby firing ranges. At this distance it sounds like a re-run of Friday's Guy Fawkes' Night. But as I am thinking hard about a novel I am reading called Matterhorn by Carl Marlantes, set during the Vietnam War, and having just bought a poppy as Remembrance Day draws near, it strikes me as a melancholy sound on an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning. 

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Mytchett Lake. Not sure what came first, the canal or the lake. The lake I guess. Or are they both man-made? Tri-athletes train in it these days apparently. But I saw just a solitary heron.

The tow-path swaps sides at this point. So it's up and over the road bridge. I like this little picture: it's a quiet and mysterious scene. Maybe because the path we are on really does end just up ahead and there's only one way to carry on....over the bridge... to the otherside.

A little bit later, I am amazed to notice that the canal passes OVER the railway. This is an "aqueduct" on the map. A word I associate more with Romans and drinking water. But here it's an industrial canal passing over a railway line. Which came first? I really don't know. My guess is the canal.Was this a hill that the canal sliced across and the railway later burrowed under? However it came to be, it's amazing to look down to your right from the towpath and realise that you and the big fat canal you are following are suspended above the railway line.

 And now we get to Deepcut. I was marvelling at how much digging - with shovel and spade, I am sure - went into cutting this canal. And then comes the flight of locks...

There are lots of  locks. Fourteen of them, I think, taking the canal down towards Brookwood..

But several of them are broken and in places the poor old canal is reduced to little more than a puddle.

Still, on Sunday 7th November 2010, there was much evidence of the robust efforts being made by The Basingstoke Canal Authority ( www.basingstoke-canal.co.uk ). Hats off to them!

On the far side of the canal, a sunken barge. I wonder when and why it was left here to rot.

Up ahead, the last lock of the day. And just beyond that Pirbright Bridge, Brookwood. I think that may be the old lock-keeper's cottage on the right. The towpath changes sides again at the road bridge.

But it's not long before we take this little iron bridge back over the water and leave the canal to head back to Brookwood station.

From the bridge, a final look back along the canal. Tidy gardens run down to the water.

A quick peek into Brookwood cemetary. It's far too big to explore today.

All in all a pleasant walk. But not many surprises. It's flat, of course. And you can always see what's up ahead. So no hills to scale and no big vistas to take in. But pleasant enough and interesting for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning.