Picked a great day for it! Started at Haslemere train station. The station is ‘served’ by South West Railways, on the Portsmouth - London Waterloo line. It’s a bigger station so has a fairly regular service.
To get the Greensand Way (GW from hereon), with your back to the station turn left and follow the road uphill, taking the left fork and then following the road over the railway and round to meet another road with St Bartholomew’s church on the corner. This road is on the GW; follow it uphill until you find a waymarked footpath sign on left hand side of the road.
The GW is well marked, with reasonably clear signs. I found three variants.
The path up and out of Haslemere was a bit tough; recent heavy rain had made for slippery going. But it was short lived thankfully and led onto the fabulously aptly named Polecat Valley.
From here it felt just a short hop before arriving at the breathtaking vistas of the Devil‘s Punchbowl. It’s a National Trust site and was pretty busy today; but worth mooching through the crowds to take a gander at the view. Lots of curated trails around here suitable for all the family so worth a follow up.
The GW takes a sharp turn at this point, taking you over towards Gibbet Hill where the executed bodies of crims and highway men of a bygone age were tarred and left to hang as a warning to others. Turner did a sketch of it in 1807 and you can see the gibbet frame. Locals used to think it was haunted. Spooky.
The GW takes a public byway down off the Hindhead common area. This appears popular with cyclists and indeed motorcyclists which has trashed the going underfoot for walkers a bit, especially given the sandy nature of the ground (clue’s in the name).
The path gets much quieter after Little Cowdray Farm and we’re into narrow paths and lots of (ahem) equestrian smells. I stopped for lunch at the church at , St Michael and All Angels, an 11th century place of worship and very picturesque in a British countryside kind of way. Sausage pie delicious, thanks Ma.
After Thursley the path takes in a stiff climb, muddy at this time of year, which evens out into rolling fields and patches of woodland. There isn’t much in the way of views, largely obscured by trees and banks, but there’s a sense of peace and isolation that wasn‘t so evident on the first half of this leg.
There’s a few points through the wooded areas where the waymarking is less clear and I was glad to have my trusty OS Maps App to double check points.
Witley train station is just a couple of minutes off the GW. It’s a small station and not well served, although there is a bus back up to Guildford (number 71 goes from outside the station on platform 2 side) which is a better option in terms of transport choices.
So, leg one of 16km (10 miles) complete on a beautiful winter day. I stopped for about an hour to admire views, poke around churches and eat. Accounting for that, it took me around 3 hours 15 minutes. Here’s the final route, which is saved to OS Maps and publicly searchable/findable/followable......
......plus a lot of hanging about for a bus/train. Glad I picked up an eccles cake at the NT cafe.
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