42km Surrey Hills MTB
The Old Turnpike Road, up to Gibbet Hill
Ride Overview
Ultimately, despite tales of highwaymen, gibbets, and the Devil loosing his cool, this winter ride is about happiness. Especially, if the day is cold, foggy and damp. The sort of mid-winter day when you wonder if it’s worth going to the effort of riding at all. Trees look good in a winter mist, more mysterious. Their branches when bejewelled by beads of moisture take on a magic quality. Add the silence of deep winter and the quick-to-dry trails, a a good long but not too difficult climb, few people out to slow your progress, as well as plentiful legends and history, and you have the ingredients of a good day out. Add a great pub at the end and the day is truly made. Whilst the heaths of Western Surrey are beautiful at any time of year, winter is their ‘home season’.
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: Milford (for trains), Thursley (for cars) DISTANCE: 42km TOTAL ASCENT: 524m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: Bridleways, some sandy stretches , suitable for MTBs and wide-tyred gravel bikes WHAT TO VISIT; The Atlantic Wall FOOD AND DRINK; Milford, The Refectory,* Thursley, The Three Horseshoes* ACCOMMODATION: PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Regular trains to Waterloo from Milford LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: NCN 22, Surrey Cycleway
*WMWG tried and test recommendation based on quality. Not necessarily the cheapest but probably the best in the locality
First, if you fancy a post ride re-fuel, ensure that you have booked a table at one of the two pubs listed above. Secondly, be aware that the heaths are criss-crossed with bridleways and as with many MTB routes the ride is better the second time round. And the third. By the fourth time, it’s as familiar and fun as your local park. That said, the downloaded route will guide you admirably.
From Thursley, snowdrops line the banks of the single track road. It’s the old London to Portsmouth Turnpike road, which from 1748-1873 was owned by the Kingston-upon-Thames to Sheet Bridge Turnpike Company. They maintained the road and collected tolls from travellers, but offered no protection from highwaymen. You’ll not see any highwayman today, for those who were caught were hung from the gibbet which you’ll pass at the top of the hill and those who were not have probably moved onto other things. Traffic too, is absent. The by-way was until 2011, a traffic-clogged road from the capital to the south coast. Today the traffic passes through the longest non-esturarine tunnel in the UK, many tens of metres below your wheels.
You might be forgiven if you thought you were in Scotland, rather than Surrey. Pines and birch surround you as you ride up the long hill, there’s winter mist, there’s heather, biscuit coloured grass and the deep hollow which could be a Scottish valley. At the top of the long climb, there are magnificent valley views of the Devil’s punchbowl, the place where the old gibbet used to be, and a National Trust Cafe.
The Devil's punchbowl, Hindhead
Legend has it that the devil would jump from hill to hill at the three ‘Devil’s Jumps’ near the village of Churt, which really irritated the god Thor, who lived nearby at Thor’s Lie (Thursley). So pissed off was Thor that he tried to strike the Devil with thunder and lightning. Enraged, the Devil retaliated by scooping up a handfuls of earth and hurling it at Thor. The hollow around which you ride, is the result of the Devil’s digging. It is said, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who lived nearby in Hindhead, was inspired to write ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ by the mist that sometimes circulates around the commons.
From the top at Gibbet’s Hill, you head back down on rough and often sandy tracks to to Pitch Place and onto Hankley Common. Here, like much of the area you’re riding over, is MOD property, where soldiers still train. Just off the path is the remains of The Atlantic Wall, created by British and Canadian troops in preparation for the D-Day landings as practice in overcoming the anti-tank walls on the Normandy beaches.
Frensham Little Pond
The route heads across Frensham Common on wooded bridleways and sandy heaths. Sometimes the going is ‘firm’ sometimes ‘soft’, depending if the rain has firmed the sand. In dry summer’s riding this section can be an extra challenge. After a few pedal strokes, you arrive at Frensham Little Pond, built in 1246 on the orders of the Bishop of Winchester so that he might have fresh fish on Fridays at his home, Farnham Castle. At the time, his ‘bondsmen’, (people who owned some land in return for ‘agricultural service’) refused to build the dam, saying that such work was ‘not agricultural’ and therefore they were not bound to do it. One of the first ‘strikes’ in English history was resolved using the same method as today: instituting a pay rise for the workmen.
There then follows a series of more bridleways to Tilford Village, with its pretty cricket green and pub, before bouncing eastwards to Shackleford, Peper Harrow and Eashing. From here, it’s a short pedal into Milford, where before you catch the train back home, warm up and feed at The Refectory. If you’re parked in Thursley, you have a further 7km to pedal before arriving at your pre-booked table at the community owned pub, The Three Horsehoes. Park your bike in their extensive garden, enjoy some of the fine beers and re-fuel from their good menu.
CREDITS; THIS ROUTE WAS DEVELOPED BY COMBINING SEVERAL SHORT FAMILY RIDES CREATED BY CYCLING UK IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE SURREY HILLS.ORG
Every route on this website has been carefully researched as well as ridden. However situations on the ground can change quickly. If you know of changes to this route, or cafes, pubs and the like which you think other cyclists need to know about, feel free to share your thoughts below.
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