“Steepest climb to St. Martha’s”

This is the third walk from the 1947 booklet “Rambles in Surrey” by Downsman. Quotations from the original text are in italics.

The walk starts at Guildford station but because the road layout has changed we cannot follow the exact route until we get to the riverside path beyond the High Street bridge.

We start by walking along the river towpath just past the High Street bridge and continue for about two miles.

The bridge carries the North Downs Way over the river, and replaces an earlier ferry.

A Victorian grotto next to the path, beside a spring.

There is a short section where the towpath has been eroded away.

The walk along the former railway embankment connects to the Downs Link, which is a footpath/cycleway along closed railway lines all the way to Shoreham-by-Sea. There was a bridge across the river here but the line was closed before World War II, hence the siting of the machine gun emplacement.

..until you reach a road, along which turn left across the river. This is Broadford Bridge, at the edge of Shalford.

In a few yards you leave the road and take a path going forward on the left across the grass

between a house (right) and cottages (left)

Past the cottages take the right hand path over Shalford Green (behind the car on the right)

cross a main road

and continue on the Green on right of another main road

Just past Forrest Stores, on the other side of the road, there is a path. Forrest Stores was a local chain of grocery shops. Not sure whether this is the same one.

Take this ahead (avoid left fork)

to a lane which goes to the left.

go through wooden swing gate on right – no gate there now

and follow fenced cinder path

The path runs next to a cricket ground.

which leads to track alongside railway. Turn right here   

cross road and continue ahead past cottage gardens

through iron swing gate and across railway.

On the other side of railway, take the forward, not the right-hand path

Turn left, left again on road. Ahead of us is the site of the Chilworth gunpowder mills, which is now open to the public.

The road bends right

where it takes a sharp turn to left leave it for the white gate and private road ahead. The gate has now been replaced by a cattle grid.

After passing a large Queen Anne house (Chilworth Manor)

the road becomes a track, bearing right.

take first left turn

which leads to a very steep path up to the top of the downs

and St. Martha’s Church, perched in strange and solitary isolation at the summit of the ridge.

There is some uncertainty regarding the correct route through the woods here; I could not find a path which matches the description in the text.

After crossing the road, again there is uncertainty. Downsman instructs to go through a gate into a field, which may be this one, but the track here is not a right-of-way, unlike the well established bridleway on the right of the field, which is the path I took.

to a left turn which leads past and round a farm(right) to an unfenced lane

The lane is also a private road but it can be viewed from the footpath above the farm. I continued along the parallel bridleway.

At the end of the lane you turn right into another lane

The lane is Water Lane.

take the first left turn into a rough track

The track becomes rougher after passing Water Lane Cottages.

past a house (right)

you leave it at a gate for a path(right), going in the same direction, through the wood. The gate is now gone. Most of Weston Wood was used for a sand quarry, and is now a landfill site, fortunately hidden from view from the path.

You pass a barn and some brickworks – The barn seems to be gone and there is a timber yard on the site of the brickworks.

We cross the road leading to the landfill site.

go through a swing gate into a field. The woods in front of us seem to have been planted since 1947, so this may have been the site of the gate.

The path continues right, beside the wood, into another field, where it immediately turns left and proceeds on the right of a fence – The path through the extended woodland now seems straighter than described.

Interestingly Downsman does not mention the obvious landmark of the Catholic Apostolic Church in front of us.

Cross this (the Albury-Shere road) and go ahead up the lane opposite

through a swing gate into parkland, which you cross, passing a blasted tree-trunk  Unsurprisingly I didn’t see the blasted tree-trunk.

to a stile into a wood (now a gate)

over another stile into a field (again now a gate)

It comes out on a cross-track, along which turn right

The track is Chantry Lane

cross, in a few yards, a bridge over the Tillingbourne.

turn through a swing gate (left) to a path by the riverside, which follow straight ahead into Shere.

The path soon becomes a muddy track.

The edge of Shere village

We pass this ford on the left which is regularly used by vehicles (although the sign says Access Only)

Teas here and buses either to Guildford or Dorking North Station. Shere has many picturesque old houses and is popular with visitors and you can still get teas and buses here, or you can carry on to Gomshall station.