'A Bill Called William' - An Anniversary Walk to Wotton and Westcott (Surrey)

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Lowland and Hill Walks
Jul 29
2017

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23 km / 14 miles7 hours

Denbies Wine Estate: The largest vineyard in England and long-established with modern viticulture on the site dating back to 1851. Denbies wines now compete internationally, with some of their sparkling and rose wines recognised as some of the best of their kind. 

Ranmore Common: A former area of common land atop the North Downs. Large houses are dotted around a a spacious green. The church of St Barnabas is by Sir George Gilbert Scott, completed in 1859. It is splendid, Grade II*-listed, but rather overbearing. 

North Downs: The northern counterpart to the South Downs, but generally gentler and more forested. There are beech and yew woods along much of their length, with chalk grassland herbs and fine views over the Weald, including from our lunch spot at Pickett's Hole. 

Wotton: The village is no more than some nineteenth century estate houses, but the church of St John has a Norman two-stage pyramidal roof atop its tower which adjoins a thirteenth century body. There are splendid memorials in the north chapel to the Evelyn family.

Wotton House: Originally a Tudor house and the birthplace of the diarist and gardener John Evelyn in 1620. It was rebuilt in hard Tudor style by Henry Woodyer in 1864. The gardens, laid out between 1643 and 1651, were one of the first Italian-style gardens in the country. The waterfall is artificial but magical. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl5NFqAPFsA.

Friday Street: near Abinger, a well-known hamlet of unremarkable cottages around a hammer pond in a stunningly beautiful deep, wooded valley. The BBC's 1984 series of The Tripods was filmed at Friday Street.

Westcott: A main road village between Dorking and Shere, but well-kept. Westcott Church is by George Gilbert Scott again, from 1852. 

If you're interested, watch Charles Dance as John Wolfenden in the BBC's 2007 drama Consenting Adults. Sean Biggerstaff plays his gay son Jeremy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_q6lBPMBug&t=2347s.

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