TADS #62:Dorking to Reigate (or Flowers Of Romance).

"I've got binoculars on top of Box Hill, I could be Nero, fly the eagle, start all over again, I can't depend on these so-called friends" - Flowers of Romance, Public Image Ltd

 

Unlike John Lydon, back in 1980, I didn't have binoculars and I never felt that I could be Nero but, very much like John Lydon, I was on top of Box Hill and I even got to see plenty of flowers (though, to be fair, they were just wild flowers, not flowers of romance) - as well as a lot of butterflies and some rather incredible views across the rolling green hills of Surrey and England.

Unlike John Lydon, I wasn't bitter about my "so-called friends" even though I was doing this walk, a TADS walk, all on my own. It was, in fact, the first ever solo TADS walk and that wasn't the only thing that was novel about it. It was also the first ever completely alcohol free TADS walk. It was also a walk that might not have happened.

I'd already postponed the walk twice so when I sent a WhatsApp round to the TADS gang last Sunday and got not one sniff of interest (a couple of refusals, Mo was watching the Olympics and Colin was attending a 60th 'Age Against the Machine' birthday party) I had to have a think. It didn't take long. I totally get people have lives (and feel very honoured when they do choose to spend their Saturdays on these walks with me) but, also, I wanted to do this walk and three postponements seemed a bit much.

So I decided to go it alone. On Saturday morning, curious about what the lyrics mean, I read the Wikipedia page about the PiL song Flowers of Romance and found a quote from Lydon in which he talks about how when it came to recording the song he couldn't find the rest of the band and had to do everything himself. Though I see that Martin Atkins (later to drum for Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Killing Joke) did play drums so Lydon appears to be gilding the lily (there's a romantic flower) somewhat.

Not me. I really did do the whole bloody thing alone. I wrote the walk, I planned the walk, and I bloody did the walk. I felt like Dennis Waterman in his Minder pomp. As usual, it had been an early start and without having to worry about others I set off earlier than normal too. Honor Oak Park to Norwood Junction, Norwood Junction to Redhill, and Redhill on to Dorking Deepdence, one of Dorking's THREE train stations. It was overcast but warm and the rain, as threatened by the weather forecast all week, had yet to appear. In fact, it never did appear and the day ended up being sunny with a gentle breeze. Almost perfect walking weather. For me at least - and it wasn't as if I had to worry about anyone else!

 

On arrival in Dorking, I passed Oddfellows Hall (which was apt as I was feeling, as I tend to, a bit of an odd fellow), That Lovely Shop, a wall painting showing the views from Box Hill (which, of course, I'd see for real later on), an impressive memorial to those lost in the Great War, and The Spotted Dog where the TADS ended up in March 2019 on a Gomshall to Dorking walk and where Tina got up to some shoulder shakin' shenanigans to Billy Joel's Tell Her About It.

These days, they've moved away from Billy Joel and proudly host a monthly 'Dog & Bass' night. Curious. Darren informed me, after I'd posted some photos on Facebook, that he'd enjoyed a few post-work pints in The Spotted Dog so perhaps the two of us can get down there for a night of dog & bass some time soon.

My phone told me that my planned brunchington stop, the Jampot Cafe, was closed so, instead, I repaired to Peppe's. It was a very good decision. Quite empty when I arrived (though packed when I left) I took cheese omelette'n'chips with some generously buttered bread and a can of Coke and read a Jeff Goldblum interview in The Guardian magazine. Thoughts of the climb to Box Hill never far from my mind. I even wondered how many people dropped out because they didn't fancy that particular ascent.

 

Once fed and watered, it was time to get on it. A scenic road took me past the spire of St.Martin's Church and a even more picturesque snicket called Archway Place took me over Pipp Brook (a 9.5 mile tributary of the Mole that flows from Leith Hill to nearby Pixham), round Dorking Wanderers football ground, and into Meadowbank Park which was, as you might expect on a Saturday morning, filling up with dog walkers and people agreeably passing time.

Meadowbank Park's Mill Pond looked pretty in the August sunshine and not long after that I came out of the park and on to London Road where I passed by Dorking Deepdene station once again and then continued north on a footpath alongside the A24. Not the most interesting section of the walk but it was only a mile or so before I turned off, through a car park and along a short dirt path, to the river Mole itself.

The Mole is a fifty mile long Thames tributary that flows from Rusper (near Horsham) to East Molesey (opposite Hampton Court Palace) and it boasts of the most diverse fish population of any English river. I didn't see so much as a minnow or a stickleback but had I looked harder perhaps I'd have seen brook lamprey, eel, brown trout ("brahn traht"), chub, dace, roach, perch, barbel, pike, and even, a new one to me, a zander or two. They've been legally introduced to the Mole.

It's not just fish the Mole is rich in either. There are marsh frogs, edible frogs, snails, and water scorpions too. None of which I saw. It was just butterflies for me. Butterflies and people. Quite a lot of people. It's a popular spot for people and in that group we can include authors and poets like Edmund Spenser (who wrote about the river in 1590's The Faerie Queene) as well as John Milton and Alexander Pope who also both wrote about it.

 

You cross the Mole here not by bridge or tunnel but by stepping stones which sounded like, and eventually was, a lot of fun. I wondered if they'd be slippery but they were high enough above the water that it seemed unlikely. Then a group of children, with some adults/carers, came the other way and one little girl, possibly six/seven years old, fell off one of the stepping stones into the river.

She went right under, she was soaked to the bone, but did she cry? Did she complain? Not at all. In fact, she looked quite pleased with herself. She was the star of the show and she'd had a little adventure. She proudly told everyone else how the water wasn't at all cold, and the dogs joyfully playing in the river clearly didn't think so either, but I still decided I'd take her word for it rather than find out for myself.

The stepping stone crossing, which leads to a small section called the Waypole (or Weypole) was opened by former Prime Minister Clement Attlee on 11th September 1946 and I wonder if Clem the Gem followed up his ceremonial duties by walking to the top of Box Hill which was what I was about to do.

 

 

It's pretty bloody steep and the steps you go up involve quite a lot of leg lifting. Because you're in the canopy you're not quite sure if you're near the top or if you've still got a long way to go but my sweaty struggles were put into perspective when a group of walkers with proper gear (sticks, race numbers, etc; some of them were even running) started passing me by.

I finally asked one friendly member of this Centurion group what they were doing, how far they were going, etc; etc; The word 'centurion' should have been a big clue. They were on a ONE HUNDRED MILE walk and Box Hill marked, roughly, the twenty-five mile mark. So they'd been up since the crack of dawn (at least) and were planning to walk another seventy-five miles, all the way to Ashford in Kent - in bloody Kent, by about lunchtime tomorrow. As I type this nearly an entire day later it boggles my mind to think they're still going. They weren't even particularly young. Many of them about my age. A lot of them quite a bit older. It just goes to show what the human body can do if we look after it, if we're fortunate with our health, and if we have enough mental strength.

 

Finally atop Box Hill, the summit was awash with picnickers, sunbathers, and a few walkers like myself - as well as the Centurion gang who'd be passing me for the next couple of miles - and I took in the views across to Reigate, Dorking, Leith Hill, and Gatwick Airport. Most pleasing of all, the patchwork of differently shaded green fields and trees. The world really is a beautiful place when you take the time to stop and look at it.

I didn't pass, this time (Shep and I had been up Box Hill many years ago, on a day we also did Leith Hill, we were younger then), the NT visitor centre and I also didn't pass the upside down grave of Peter Labilliere but reckon I should include a bit about him here anywhere as he's something of a Box Hill legend.

Born in Dublin to a French Huguenot family in 1725, he joined the British Army at just fourteen years old and rose to be a major. Later, presumably disenchanted with army life, he became a political agitator and bribed British troops not to fight in the American War of Independence. He eventually moved to Dorking and used to meditate on Box Hill but he smelt so bad that people called him "the walking dung-hill". When he died, in 1800, he was buried head downwards near the top of Box Hill in accordance with his wishes. Either because he wished to see an upside down world the right way up or as an attempt to emulate St Peter who is said to have been crucified upside down. Or both.

 

Box Hill is named for the ancient box woodland plants found on its impressive west facing chalk slopes (I'd be looking back towards them for much of the rest of the afternoon) and, along with Leith Hill, it's part of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as well as being part of the Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest. It receives approximately 850,000 visitors a year and in 2012 it featured prominently in the London Olympics cycling events.

Between 1929 and 1932, John Logie Baird lived at Box Hill and sent early television transmissions to the roof of The Red Lion pub in Dorking and Box Hill has featured in the literature of Daniel Defoe, John Evelyn, GK Chesterton, and Adam Mars-Jones. Jane Austen's 1816 Emma sees a picnic scene set on the hill. Musicians, also, have been inspired by Box Hill. Leaving PiL aside, for now, Richard Thompson, Ben Watt, and no less a band than Dumpy's Rusty Nuts have made reference to it in their songs. Films that have been set there include 1968's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and 2012's Berberian Sound Studio.

Slowly, and sometimes quite steeply - though at least on steps, I began to descend and once I'd crossed the railway bridge and the A25 I arrived at the edge of Brockham Village (please drive carefully). Along Brockham Lane and then into, and through, the inspringly titled, Brockham Big Field before following Kiln Lane, coming off along a dirt track, saying hello to some cattle sheltering from the sun (one whose face was absolutely covered in flies, that can't be fun) and chatting briefly to a friendly dog walker and his friendly dog. Though the dog didn't say much.

 

 

 

The path lead me into the village of Betchworth which is home to a church, St Michael's, which featured in the opening scene of Four Weddings And A Funeral (the village street of Betchworth also has a bit of cinema pedigree, it was used in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia), and, of more use to me - even when not on the wobbly pop, a pub.

The Dolphin's a nice pub too. The rest of the walkers would have liked it. They may have even made a two pint mistake. I didn't. I had a pint of lemonade and sat out in the garden reading the paper and struggling with a tricky sudoku. If dogs are your thing, and they are a lot of people's thing, you can have your hound photographed and added to a rogue's gallery of mutts posted up near the bar.

 

Some dogs are my thing, some dogs aren't. Deer though, that's my thing and once I'd left The Dolphin and started heading along Wonham Lane (a very quiet road, hardly any traffic) I chanced upon a field full of fawny deer. Hundreds of them (they're not ALL in the photos), many of them with their tails spinning round excitedly like so many Cervidae propellers.

There were some nice houses on this stretch too. Some pleasant ponds, the odd mill, and, of course, lots more dirt tracks though thankfully very little actual mud. At one point the path I was taking opened me up into a beautiful green field with a couple of proud trees foregrounding an awesome expanse of prime countryside. I stopped and took it in for a bit longer than I normally would.

That's one of the advantages of solo walking. The disadvantages come when you can't have a laugh and a joke with your friends in the pub, play a game of Heads Up on the train, or order a sneaky extra drink in the curry house. Not to worry. It is what it is and what it is, or what it was, is pretty good. A brief section on the road saw me looking for a particularly well hidden footpath and that was about as far wrong, about ten metres, that I went all day. No wonder I was making good time.

 

 

 

 

Pub two, the Skimmington Castle - on Reigate Heath, came up pretty quickly and I arrived at it in the way I like to arrive at pubs. Coming out of the bushes. I could hear the laughter of pub goers before I could see them. I felt confident I'd reached the pub and then I saw a pile of beer barrels and then the pub itself. It was a great pub and if the gang had been out, and we'd not already made a two pint mistake in The Dolphin, then surely we'd have got stuck here for a while.

I had a Fentiman's ginger beer and made an impulse purchase of a Kit-Kat (not had one for years but this non-drinking malarkey makes you hungry and also, I rather suspect, makes you crave sugary substitutes) and sat round the back of the pub because it was too nice to sit indoors and all the best outdoor seats had been taken.

 

 

 

 

Of course, it didn't ruin my (short - ginger beer goes down pretty quickly) visit. I had wondered, earlier in the day, if I'd feel sorry for myself doing this walk on my own but, instead, I actually felt sorry for some of the others. The walk would probably not have been to everybody's taste but I know for certain that there are members of the TADS gang who would have really enjoyed this walk. They'd have certainly enjoyed the Skimmington Castle.

They wouldn't have enjoyed, but they would probably have commented upon, the golf course I passed through after leaving pub #2. Not because they're keen golfers, absolutely not, but because it's become something of a running joke how we always seem to end up on a golf course at some point. There's an even older joke about golf being "a good walk spoiled" but these golfers seem determined not just to ruin their own walks but to ruin the walks of non-golfers too.

 

 

Yesterday, however, they did not succeed. Past some beautifully painted pastel shaded houses on the edge of Reigate Heath and on to the A25/West Street into Reigate proper, the walk was reaching its end and it wasn't even 5pm yet. I was determined to keep the TADS flame alive and have a curry but the New Gurkha, a Nepali place I'd earmarked as my chosen venue, didn't open until 1730hrs so another pub stop it was.

The Red Cross Inn couldn't hold a candle to either The Skimmington Castle or The Dolphin but it was pleasant enough. I sucked on a lemonade, charged my phone up, and read my book (Anne Applebaum's Autocracy Inc;, thanks for asking) while others watched horse racing. A strong contender for my least favourite sport.

So I read (to myself, not out loud, I haven't cracked up completely) the spiel I'd prepared about Reigate. A spiel that didn't include Darren and Cheryl's frankly bizarre, and incredibly sober, karaoke performance of Pulp's Common People in a Reigate pub over twenty years ago (Tina, Tony, and Alex will remember) but did include the fact that Reigate was recorded in The Domesday Book as Cherchefelle though the name Reigate did appear as early as 1190.

It's now part of the commuter belt but once relied on agriculture (specifically hops, flax, and oatmeal) and there was, it is firmly believed, an important Roman villa somewhere nearby. Coins have been found from the reigns of Vespasian (69-79) and Hadrian (117-138). Undoubtedly, there is an 11/12c castle there, a neoclassical style Old Town Hall (1728), two windmills, and some caves. Arthur Conan Doyle sent Sherlock Holmes to Reigate in 1893's The Adventure of the Reigate Squire and Holiday presenter Cliff Michelmore lived in the town for most of his working life. Although he died in Petersfield.

With no facts to top that Cliff Michelmore one it was time for food and when I arrived, there were already a fairly large family group in the New Gurkha (quiet restaurants are fine, empty ones a bit weird) and they were speculating, incorrectly, on the supposedly trans Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and the latest culture war hot topic (woman punches woman in woman's boxing fight seems to be the story as far as I can tell, thanks Puss Johnson for that). I was tempted to put them right but I just wanted to eat my meal and they weren't nasty, they'd just been misguided, intentionally, by the right wing media.

Not the only ones, during a week where one of the most tragic murders I can remember - of three little girls at a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport, has given rise to groups of fascists and thugs throwing bricks at the police, burning down shoe shops, and attacking mosques. Despite the murderer not being either a Muslim, a policeman, or, to the best of my knowledge, holding shares in Shoe Zone.

It's a grim ol' world out there and it's even grimmer if you let these people set the narrative for your life. Instead, you can get out walking (or running, or cycling, or picnicking) in the countryside and beautiful parks of Britain, you can meet people, you can find common ground, and you can see that most people don't run around stabbing children or rock up at crime scenes to throw bricks around and cause further upset. Most people try to enjoy their lives and try to help other people make the most of their lives too.

That's what these walks have always been about so I tucked into a rather delicious, and pleasingly inexpensive, jhaneko daal with garlic naan and a mango lassi to wash it down (no poppadums, they always taste better when you share them so I don't tend to bother on solo missions) before making the short walk back to Reigate station and taking the train home (via Clapham Junction and Crystal Palace).

On the way home, I watched some of the Olympics on my phone. I saw the Netherlands make a stunning recovery to win the mixed 4x400 relay (an event I didn't even know existed) and, best of all, I saw Julien Alfred win St.Lucia's first ever Olympic medal. Just a gold. Just the women's 100 metres. No biggie.

My own feats had hardly been Olympian (though 31,310 steps ain't bad) but they had still felt like something of an achievement. Far more importantly than that, I'd had a really lovely day and seen some really beautiful scenery and views.

It was interesting, and even enjoyable, doing a walk on my own but I'll be glad to have friends/fellows TADS members back again soon and, fortunately, I won't be waiting too long for that to happen. At the end of this month, we're off to Scarborough for the 9th (yes, NINTH) annual TADS two-dayer. It's my birthday weekend. I've got a feeling it might be fun.