I joined ‪#‎DiscoverGuildford at the Compton Circular walk a few weeks ago as a plan of ‪#‎GetFit2015 and decided to come on The Surrey Hills Society trek along The Devils Punchbowl which Pete also lead.
Pete is a really knowledgeable and fun guide to be with. He does not rush new trekkers like me. Instead he always takes good care of us with well-planned routes and good cultural and historical stories behind every corner we have been to. I thoroughly enjoy his treks.

We meet new people every single time; good fun, good laughs and good people. I strongly recommend these to all my friends and just cannot wait for a weekend to join a new trek as a mini getaway from the busy daily life.

Well done Pete, and good luck for your plan to climb the Kilimanjaro.

Thanh Hà Dương (who regularly participates to the 20-30s walks)

A big thank you to everyone who donated to the Cooper boys, Darren and Philip, who rode in the recent Ride London 100 mile cycle challenge on behalf of the Surrey Hills Society. They did the ride, in extremely poor conditions, but told us that they enjoyed the extra challenges the weather threw at them, saying: ‘The rain belted down for ages, we couldnƒ??t have been wetter, but the camaraderie of the other cyclists around us and the crowds kept us going – the experience was amazing all in all. Weƒ??ll do it again next year if the Society wants us to, and hope we might stay dry and get to ride all the Surrey Hills next timeƒ??. Their target of ?œ500 to help the National Trust install a drinking water fountain on Leith Hill has been achieved, but if anyone wants to donate, the JustGiving site is still open. Any further donations will be gratefully accepted, or cheques can be sent made payable to Surrey Hills Society. www.justgiving.com/thebrotherscooper

Two brothers, Darren and Philip Cooper, will be taking part in the Prudential Ride London/Surrey Classic on 10 August on behalf of the Surrey Hills Society. Their mother Diane has been volunteering for the Society since its inception and is a keen supporter. The boys told us, ƒ??Having been enjoying road cycling for a while now – and taking on bigger and bigger challenges – itƒ??s great that we are able to compete on behalf of the Surrey Hills Society in the Prudential 100 miler. The fact that the route goes through the hills that are part of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that weƒ??ve known since childhood makes it really special. Training is going well and we canƒ??t wait to take up the challenge and enjoy traffic-free roads for a day!ƒ?? By day Darren works for a Woking-based charity, the ƒ??York Road Projectƒ?? as well as teaching English at a local language school. Philip is a self-employed camera and sound-man, whoƒ??s done a little bit of work for the Surrey Hills AONB in the past. Both grew up and still live in the Woking area. Darren adds, ƒ??The Olympics really got me into road cycling and I started to ride regularly with a club. Now my brother is hooked too and we both like to get out at weekends as much as possible.ƒ?? The money raised will go towards providing financial support for the installation of a restored drinking fountain for visitors to Leith Hill tower. The Society has been approached by the National Trust Surrey Hills to see if we can assist with their fundraising efforts and this appears to be a perfect match for our cyclistƒ??s sponsorship money. The fountain will provide free drinking water for the walkers, cyclists, families, dogs and horses who make up the 600,000 visitors to the tower each year. Weƒ??re hoping that people will show their support for this event, and the Leith Hill project, and sponsor the boys even for just a small amount. Please take a look on their JustGiving page at www.justgiving.com/thebrotherscooper  

Many are the woes of a keen rambler who doesn’t know how to use a compass. Whether it is the reluctance to explore the path less taken in a no-mobile-network area or being the group simpleton in a team of full of veteran ramblers, it is not fun being ‘that’ person. ‘That’ person could be the one getting ‘simplified’ instructions at de-briefing dinners or he/she could be the one that the Mountain Marshall distrusts! Don’t believe me? Let me narrate an incident.

Around mid-summer I took on the 3-peak challenge – climb 3 of the highest peak in the UK within 24 hours. Two of the ‘must-brings’ in the equipment list was a compass and a map. I argued that those items will only add to the weight in my bag without serving any other purpose. The Mountain Marshall decided that I was an enemy! He did remember, though, at the de-briefing dinner to keep instructions simple. “In case you separate from the group and get lost, keep going northwest and you are bound to hit the right trail”. Then, catching the Garfield-look from me, he goes ‘walk compass needle pointing top left!’ See what I mean?

So no points for guessing my reaction when I saw the Surrey Hills Navigation Walk advertised in the Newsletter. It was a sign – the universe was telling me to overcome my navigation disability.

After waiting for, what to me seemed like forever, D-day, July 2, dawned bright and sunny. A small group of friendly people under Pete’s leadership met at the Chilworth station. Starting from the Station, the group was paired up and it was decided that each of the pair take turns to lead. Each team of two was assigned the co-ordinates and it was their responsibility to figure out the path and get from Point A to Point B. Although this was a follow-up walk to a theoretical meet-up last February, absolute newbies like me (I only became a member at the end of June 2014) were given due guidance in understanding some of the map’s features and legends. Needless to say, it was one of the most interesting of walks I had done recently. The comradeship that comes out of knowledge sharing and information consulting can be quite stimulating. It keeps you encouraged, energised but mostly involved.

To me, as someone, who is keen on improving directional abilities, the best part of the walk was when we stopped on Blackheath to get our bearings. Standing there in a heath, setting the map with the compass so that it matches what you see in the distance and trying to point it in the right direction was quite interesting. We had the St Martha’s Church (yes the one at St Martha’s Hill, what an incredible sight) in the distance which we used to identify our position with, adjust the Magnetic North and Map Grid North and then decided on the direction of the path that would take us to our pre-designated spot.

At the end of the walk, I was, as they say ‘well chuffed’!

As a new member, I am keen to see unique and interesting Walks like these.

Can’t wait for Pete to organise another such walk. Come rain or shine I will sign up!

Editors Note: The author of this article – Supriya – is a young Indian lady who is working in Surrey at the moment. She comes from a family background where walking in the country is not regarded as “safe” so the concept of walks in the Surrey Hills is inspirational for her. She has recently joined the Society, and taken part in a number of our 20’s to 30’s events and others from our mainstream programme. Supriya is an excellent ambassador for the Society and shows the way that we can help people to explore and appreciate our special Surrey Hills.

On Saturday 12 October I joined a very enthusiastic group of people at Newlands Corner for an introductory session on orienteering, organised by Guildford Orienteers and led by Society member, Marion-Payne Bird and her helpers. This was a new experience for most of us and after a short introduction we were given a chart, marked with letters and numbers and asked to find our way round a temporary course, set up on a grassy area just down the hill at Newlands. The children quickly grasped the idea of this while some of the adults took a little longer! It was a glorious, sunny autumn morning and after chatting over coffee and receiving more information to help us on our way, including how to use a compass, we set off in groups to negotiate the permanent orienteering course which starts near the Visitor Centre. We were given an orienteering map of the course with 15 control points marked as circles with numbers and one person was in charge of the “dib”. We set off to find the numbered control points marked by a wooden post and recorded our visit to each one by dibbing in the box on the top of the post, until we heard a bleep. From time to time we checked our location with a compass as we negotiated wooded areas and small tracks. At the end of the course we were given a print out of the times we reached each check point and the total time taken to do the route. We then realised that each dib had recorded our progress along the way! Many thanks to Marion and her team for a really enjoyable morning. Julia Evans, Society Member

On a mid-September day, village historian John Callcut led more than 20 members of the Surrey Hills Society on a walk around the ancient fields and trackways of Newdigate. Newdigate means “the gate to Ewood”, where a gate implies a road, and the road in question led to the deer hunting lodge at Ewood. But first we sat in the spiritual heart of the village, the parish church of St Peter’s, to hear about the Newdigate family, and to inspect the magnificient wood carvings on the pews and the four angels below the high altar. We stopped off at the village pond to see where the horse drawn carts were driven in, to soak the wooden wheels thus preventing them shrinking and the iron tyres falling off. Then it was over our first stile, towards the medieval patchwork of fields, John Callcut had kindly mapped out on a handout. Our first field is Swampet field, a very wet field, followed by Fox Causeway, which had a ridge of high ground, allowing the foxes to run across this field in the dry. Then onto Church field, and a glimpse of St Peter’s steeple in the distance. We arrived at the ancient dirt track called Green Lane, bordered by a stream full of common soft rush (Juncus Effusus ). This ancient track runs north-south, a major transportation route until the Victorians built their roads in the 1870s. On the cusp of autumn, the trees around us were still green. The hedges full of crab apple fruits, dog rosehips, red hawthorn berries, and clutches of elderberries and sloes. We passed the old marl pits of Kiln field and Field Platt, where they made fertilizer by firing up chalk from Betchworth Quarry, to create lime and spread over the fields. The next field Stoney Furrow, named because of it’s soil type, followed by Beechen Field surrounded by beech trees. In front of Home Farm (originally named Newdigate Place), we heard how the Newdigate Family came to re-locate to Nuneaton in Warwickshire, where they run a successful conference centre in another of their ancestral homes (said to feature in George Eliot’s novels). . Tanhurst Farm was our next visit, once used for leather tanning, but now renowned for its catering. The tea shop is popular with cyclists and the playground outside attracts families. The newly built extension shows what a popular stop it has become. The farm shop sells its own frozen dinners www.tanhousefarmshop.co.uk . They even supply an evening dinner party service in your own home to take the strain out of all that defrosting. Waitresses from Tanhurst Farm serve the first course whilst the main course, and pudding are self service. Tanhurst Farm staff then return to collect the dirty washing upƒ?? what a really original and fantastic idea! In this way, Tudor farms can remain viable as micro-businesses into the 21st Century A few fields away, Greens Farm has won an outstanding reputation for wedding receptions, which has increased the congregation at St Peter’s. As couples booking the wedding venue also opt to get married in the local church, and attend services ahead of their wedding day. The many restored outbuildings alongside Greens Farm are also put to good use. I liked the scented lavender path leading to the barn door of the village osteopath. The surrounding lakes, are stocked as fisheries. As we walked by, a tractor mows the grass to keep the path wide enough for those pack-loads of equipment that the modern fisherman finds essential. Turning for our last look at the beautiful farm house, John points out the garderobe, a small overhang on the first floor, used in Medieval times as a toilet. We ended our walk at some new affordable eco-housing, clad in spruce panels, with solar panels on the roof. Built on poor farmland for people with a strong connection with the village, it has yet to establish a proper visual connection to the native timber and brick cottages surrounding it. Given its chequered history of boom and bust, it’s heartening to see that the renewed investment of incoming Victorians continues to this day as Newdigate continually reinvents itself as a thriving village that has held on to its identity.

The Surrey Hills Society is going to be represented at the Ride London cycle challenge on 4 August by two riders and members, Nick Jubert and Chris Holyoak. The lucky pair are hoping to notch up a good time on the day, whilst raising funds, which will mean that the Surrey Hills AONB will ultimately benefit from the fact that the race is coming through the county. They say “The Surrey Hills have been at the centre of our sporting efforts for the last 30 years. With other friends, our Sunday morning runs were a must – even when the night before might have left us feeling like we needed a lie in! Over the years we discovered more and more routes from Send and Clandon where we lived up to Newlands Corner and onwards. It always amazed us just how many paths there are and we would need another life time to do all of them justice”. Cycling has been a natural progression which allows us to continue our sporting endeavours. Our knees now remind us of our age and the bike allows exercise to continue whilst sitting down! But hills are hills whichever way you try to get up them and the London 100 has a couple of real tests with Leith and then Box Hill to conquer. Coming as they do after 50 and 60 miles they will probably feel longer and larger than usual! The idea that the race allows us to use 100 miles of London’s and Surrey’s roads WITH NO VEHICLES makes it the ultimate “must do” event. We both failed to get places in the ballot for one of the 20,000 entries and did not hesitate to say yes when the places became available through the Surrey Hills Society. There is no short answer to being fit for this race without doing a lot of road miles which means doing repeated training rides of more than 50 miles in the hills. We’re well into this training regime now and caught up with the Society chairman, Christine Howard, on one of our recent training trips just after we’d climbed up to Ranmore Common”. Both riders see this as a massive personal challenge and are really hoping to raise funds for the Society through sponsorship. All contributions to their cause would be greatly appreciated and knowing there are supporters out there will encourage them to focus their efforts on 4 August. If you’d like to support them, please pledge your donation (including gift aid if applicable) at www.justgiving.org.uk