Interactive map of Britain's greatest walks and the best pubs, hotels and B&Bs

Get the route on your mobile phone

Print the map and route to take with you (PDF)

Explore our other walks from short strolls to rural rambles

Times Walks: the 100 best walks in the UK

Find your favourite ramble, print it out, pack your rucksack, and head out into the countryside or city

• Times Walks: Portesham and Hardy’s Monument, Dorset

Related Internet Links

• The best walks in the British Isles

The 12 best pubs in England and Wales

Alastair Sawday praises the determined and imaginative owners in his choice

• London's 10 best pubs

Related Internet Links

• Walk London: 27 walks in the capital

Route Gomshall - Abinger - Wotton Common - Gomshall County Surrey Difficulty Moderate (but long-ish) Distance 18.5 km (11 ½ miles) Typical time 5-6 hours OS grid reference: TQ089478, Explorers 145, 146 Starting point Gomshall station

Blister rating: 3/5 View rating: 3/5

Why I love this walk

Few, very few, walks are improved by the clattering of railways carriages. One exception is found in the rolling mix of farms, woodland and heath under the North Downs escarpment between Dorking and Guildford.

And you do not have to be a trainspotter to appreciate the racket. It helps that the trains are infrequent. But it’s hard not to stop, watch, even to wave, as the coaches trundle past.

On the Wotton Estate, look out for the hammer ponds and rills, the remains of pre-industrial iron workings now all but reclaimed by nature.

Stroll through the enchanting Deerleap and past the simple memorial to Samuel Wilberforce, bishop, son of the slave campaigner and a ridiculer-in-chief of Charles Darwin: recall that it was “Soapy” Sam Wilberforce who reputedly asked whether we were descended from apes on the maternal or paternal side.

Dying after falling from his horse in July 1873, he rode, and we might walk, in shifting arboreal light.

Neat cottages, in perfect keeping with this sleepy retreat, seem a far cry from the metropolis that, from the top of nearby Leith Hill, you can see spread out in the north.

Yes, the Surrey Hills, to standards set by Britain’s rugged coasts, peaks and windswept moors, are tame. Yet the trains, and the other measured reminders of the way the landscape has calmly adapted and re-adapted to human habitation, bring a thought-provoking beauty all of their own.

The route

1 From Gomshall station cross A25; tunnel under railway; right down Wonham Way. In 250m, left on bridleway, bearing right past Southbrook Farm. In 300m, turn left across fields to cross B2126. Climb slope across fields, then descend to join track for 530m to lane at Volunteer Inn, Sutton Abinger.

2 Left; in 150m, right up steps, passing Raikes Farm and crossing fields for 800m to road at Abinger Hatch Inn. Right to Abinger Common village green.

3 Right (“Leith Hill” sign); in 75m, left (“Abinger Bottom”); in 100m, right (fingerpost) through woods for 530m to Abinger Bottom. Right up No Through Road to top of trees; left across fields to road by Leylands Farm. Right for 200m; left through Wotton Common woods for 1km to turn left along Greensand Way long-distance path at Leith Hill Tower. Greensand Way continues for 300m past tower.

4 Turn left to go north for 4.8km, by Broadmoor and past the ponds of the Wotton Estate to the road at Wotton. Leave Greensand Way here; right along road to cross A25.

5 Follow lane to Church of St John the Evangelist; on to Park Farm; left on bridleway past Deerleap Wood, through woods and commons of Abinger Roughs, for 1km to pass Wilberforce memorial cross. On over Broomy Downs for 1.5km to turn left down Hackhurst Lane to A25 in Abinger Hammer.

6 Right for 150m; left to return to Gomshall station via Southbrook Farm and Wonham Way.

Things to see: Pretty villages (Sutton Abinger, Abinger Hammer), St James's Church, Abinger Common, view from Leith Tower, valley of the Tilling Bourne

Pub rating: 4/5

Pub The Volunteer at Sutton Abinger (superb garden, gorgeous village views) comes early in the walk, but there's also the Abinger Hatch Inn and, later on, the Wotton Hatch Inn

Log on to chat with other walkers at the Times Health Club