TADS #68:Balcombe to Haywards Heath (or Mr.Ouse).

Haywards Heath, Cuckfield, Balcombe, the Ardingly Reservoir, and the Ouse Valley Viaduct was all new terrain to. I must have passed through it on trains from London to Brighton dozens of time but I'd never got off and had a look around. On a glorious April Saturday two weeks ago (yes, this blogger has been more than a little tardy) I (and the TADS) finally remedied that - and I was bloody glad I did too. What a lovely area, what a lovely day, and what lovely people to spend that day with.

I'd taken the train from Honor Oak Park to West Croydon (West Croydon is a story in its own right) and walked to East Croydon before hopping on another train to Balcombe. Pam was running very early but on arrival in Balcombe I met with Roxanne and Clive and soon with Pam, Adam, Teresa, Shep, Tony, Alex, and Freddie the dog. Freddie would go on to do far more steps than the rest of us that day. That lad's got some energy.

I had some cheese on toast (I'd not been feeling well and was struggling to get food down - but the day was a real tonic) at the friendly Balcombe Tea Rooms and, once done, we zigzagged through the quaint village of Balcombe before coming off into some woods - involving a brief wrong turn that nobody was too upset about.

Balcombe is a small place with a population of less than 2,000 and its name means "Mining Place Camp", Bal meaning mining place and combe meaning camp or, possibly, valley. The village has a series of World War I murals by Neville Bulwer-Lytton (1879-1951) which was commissioned by Lady Gertrude Denman (1884-1954) and placed in the Victory Hall near the tea rooms but we didn't go to have a look. We probably should have done.

Balcombe was also the birthplace of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Bourne (1855-1945) who was the last survivor of the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 (and later featured in the 1964 film Zulu). The actor Paul Scofield (Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, Zeffirelli's Hamlet, and many more) is buried in Balcombe's St Mary's churchyard. But perhaps best of all, in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the 1981 TV series), Arthur Dent's house is in Balcombe. Bloody Vogons.

At this point somebody asked me "where do go from here" and it was down to the lake, I fear. Except it's not a lake so much as it's a reservoir. It's bloody gorgeous. With the sun shining across the verdant valleys you could almost imagine yourself to be in Switzerland. Freddie imagined himself to be in some kind of holiday heaven as he jumped in the water and chased a ball around. The rest of us just kept walking for a few miles along the lovely lake.

Ardingly (pronounced lie, not lee as I thought - they say things funny down that way) Reservoir covers 184 acres (74.5 hectares) and feeds the Ouse, a river which flows thirty five miles from Lower Beeding to the coast at Newhaven. It was created in 1979 by damning an Ouse tributary, Shell Brook and you can kayak, wind surf, paddleboard, dinghy, and powerboat on the water. Though you'll have to share it with carp, pike, tench, gudgeon, eel, bream, rudd, roach, European perch, and, if you're lucky, one very excitable young hound.

As we finally came off the reservoir there was a bit of confusion as the path split into multiple paths but we found the correct one soon enough and soon, via a pleasant field or two, we crossed Haywards Heath Road as the beautiful Ouse Valley Viaduct came into sight. We were far from the only ones who'd come to see it and many were, quite understandably, making the most of the excellent photo opportunities it provides.

Including us, although one numpty (me) clearly didn't get the memo about the pose required. The viaduct, described as "probably the most elegant viaduct in Britain", was built in 1842 by John Urpeth Rastrick (1780-1856, primarily a steam locomotive builder, he built the Stourbridge Lion - America's first ever locomotive) and David Mocatta (1806-1882, a Jewish architect who built synagogues as well as the train stations of Brighton, Croydon, and Haywards Heath - though the latter has since been rebuilt).

Sadly departing the viaduct we followed some more fields before arriving on the unpaved, initially, B2036/London Road which we followed for a couple of miles. The plan was to dip back into more rural paths but realising the two big highlights (viaduct and reservoir) had already passed and that that route would add too many miles/too much time, I made an executive - if uncertain - decision to continue along the now paved road into Cuckfield. Which is, I learned a couple of days before the walk, pronounced Cookfield and not as you might expect it to be pronounced.

It was only another mile or so and Cuckfield's not huge. People were needing a drink, a sit down, and possibly more than anything, the toilet so we made our way to The Rose and Crown pub. All of the outdoor seating was taken but we enjoyed a couple of pints inside and were even joined by the always engaging, always funny, Dan Whaley who told a great story about a Taj Mahal gig as Shep and I reminisced over the hugely fascinating subject of phone numbers.

Cuckfield (population, approximately 3,300) is twinned with Aumale in Normandy and Karlstadt in Bavaria and the debated origin of its name is generally associated with the cuckoo which is the village emblem. A market town and coaching stop between London and Brighton, landowners protested the possible arrival of the railway and were successful. The railway instead went to Haywards Heath and then that town took over prominence between the two neighbours.

Very near neighbours as it turned out. The final stretch only took about an hour. Through some fields, sadly not down Mytten Twitten, and past some lovely suburban houses on the edge of Haywards Heath as Alex regaled us with stories of her time going to school in the area. Her school even featured in the walk but I missed her telling people that at the time. Like a complete doofus.

In 1822, near Cuckfield, Mary Ann Mantell found the first known iguanadon fossils and other Cuckfield notables include Natasha Bedingfield, Tara Fitzgerald, Baron Denning, Sally Geeson from Bless This House, Nick Van Eede of Cutting Crew, Jamie Theakston, Mike Hazlewood (who co-wrote The Hollies' The Air That I Breathe so does rather well out of Radiohead - or would do if he didn't die in 2001), and the actors James and Edward Fox.

Haywards Heath's name was first recorded in 1261 as Hayworth (then in 1359 as Hayworthe, 1544 - Haywards Hoth, 1607 - Hayworths Hethe) and legend has it that there was once a local highwayman called Jack Hayward who it's named after. Roughly 34,000 people call it home and in 1642, HH's Muster Green saw a minor battle in the First English Civil War. Only a few hundred died as the Parliamentarians emerged victorious. It was once home to the UK's largest cattle market (make your own jokes about the town's women, I'm not going there) but that's now a Sainsbury's and in 1859 the opening of the Sussex County Lunatic Asylum was a major event in the town.

It's twinned with Bondues in France and Traunstein in Germany and notables are listed as Daniel Bedingfield, Natasha Bedingfield (Cuckfield or Haywards Heath?, make your mind up Nat), Milan born Greta Scacchi, Wycombe Wanderers midfielder Kieran Sadlier, Richard Osman and his brother Matt's and Matt's Suede bandmate Brett Anderson. Which led us to sit in the beer garden of the Burrell Arms and talk about our favourite Suede songs - as well as burial plans and jokes about ambushing a group of Capital Walkers who we met in the pub and had done a much longer walk than us. I laughed hard. Roxanne and Clive had left before the pub and after the pub Tony, Alex, and Frederico left as well.

The rest of us retired to The Curry Inn for nice Indian food and some more silly chat before Pam and I got some train booze and returned home via East Croydon,. We're doing it all again in a couple of weeks (Walking with Ghosts, Guildford to Horsley) so all I can do now is thank Pam for the photos (less than normal as I didn't take any this time), apologise for this blog's tardiness, and say a very big thankyou to Roxanne, Clive, Shep, Pam, Adam, Teresa, Dan, Tony, Alex, and, of course, Freddie for a really wonderful day and a lot of laughter. Long live the TADS!