🥾 Walk 473 - Tilford Common and Frensham Ponds

The weather was much better than expected on Sunday 22nd August when seven of us (including visitors from the Loddon Valley Ramblers and the Hampshire 40+ group) met up for an 8.5 mile walk. The visitor from LVR was Clive, who has walked with us a few times last year and the visitor from Hants 40+ was Denise, who used to be in our group and has led many walks for us. The leaders where Julie and Mark, who we don't see that often, so this walk felt like a bit of a reunion.

The walk started from Tilford, in Surrey, but proved to be quite different from the walk we did from here in July. We set off heading south-west along a wooded bridleway that crossed Tilford Common to Frensham Little Pond. Despite its name, this large body of water looked more like a lake to me.

We followed the eastern edge of the pond and then a footpath through more woodland before emerging into heathland. There was an abundance of purple heather amongst the heathland shrubs and bracken. The soil in Frensham Common is very sandy and there is a particularly sandy area by Frensham Great Pond known locally as the beach, however, this was not on our route.

We crossed Churt Common to arrive at The Flashes. This part of Frensham Common is a beautiful mixture of pine trees, purple heather and the occasional silver birch, with a series of hills to the south known as The Devil's Jumps. We made our way up the tallest one. This exertion was rewarded (once we'd got our breath back) with some excellent views and some benches that had been thoughtfully placed near the top.

We had lunch while admiring the views before heading back down to cross more heathland and ascend Kettlebury Hill. The sand on the path, as we crossed from Frensham Common to Hankley Common, changed from grey-white to orangey-yellow.

We joined a path that followed a ridge, with splendid aerial views of Hankley Common. This is MoD land and we took a detour to see an interesting feature - The Atlantic Wall. This was built in 1943 by Canadian troops as a replica section of the German Atlantic anti-tank wall. It was used by the allies to practice techniques for breaching the German wall in preparation for Operation Overlord in 1944.

Leaving the ridge path for the Greensand Way, we crossed a golf course with it's manicured greens in stark contrast to the purple heather between them.

We all agreed to the optional pub-stop at the Duke of Cambridge, which had plenty of outdoor seating and even an outdoor bar! We suspected that this outdoor structure had original been built to serve food from a barbecue, but had been re-purposed during the pandemic to allow the pub to operate when people weren't allowed to go inside. A novel alternative to table service.

Suitable refreshed, we headed back into Tilford Common and made our way to Frensham Little Pond. From here, we retraced our outgoing route back to the car park at Tilford. See our route on Google Maps. The extra detours to see the Atlantic Wall and for the pub-stop had mysteriously increased the length of the walk by over three miles! We didn't mind. The weather was good and the countryside was stunning.

Thank you to Julie and Mark for leading this walk.

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