Fifteen people assembled at Dorking station, including 3 new potential members.

The sun was shining and after a bit of confusion finding the right path, we walked through woods crossing the River Mole at various points, interspersed with open fields and lovely views. After a couple of miles, we stopped at a very nice garden centre for a comfort break before carefully crossing the A25. We heading up through Betchworth Golf Club., between the greens so avoiding flying golf balls!

We emerged onto Brockham Village Green and crossed over past The Hungry Mole restaurant and reached a small animal pound. Apparently only chickens were allowed to feed on the green and any other animals found doing so were impounded until the owner paid a fine for their release!.

We turned left and walked down a track and across a footbridge for another kilometer before reaching St Michael’s Church Betchworth. This is a lovely old church dating from 1080 but made more famous in recent times by the fact that the lytch gate featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

We had a picnic in the church grounds before heading over to The Dolphin Pub for a drink in the garden.
After lunch we went through more fields and then into woods following a short section of steep and overgrown path down to the Rice Bridge, again crossing the Mole river. This bridge apparently can become flooded after heavy rain, but showed no sign of this in light of the very hot and dry summer.

After this we encountered a few stiles along the way until we met the Greensand Way and a very steep path up to top of Reigate Park Hill. The path was mercifully short – and less onerous than I had remembered from the walkover! Once on the top we had a lovely walk along the broad green ridge to the trig point with seats around amonument declaring that the land had been donated to the town by Mr and Mrs Randal Vogan. We took the opportunity to have a seat at the monument for a photo.

The final stretch was to turn left and follow the path down past the Priory through the woods until we emerged on the playing fields, where we stopped for a welcome cup of tea at the Pistachios in the Park cafe, before heading into Reigate in good time for the 17.05 train to Victoria. The weather had stayed fine and it was a lovely day.

Rochelle