Walk from East Grinstead to Gatwick.
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Parametric data

• Route name:

  Worth Way (East Grinstead station to Gatwick.)

• This route on OS maps:

  https://explore.osmaps.com/route/14488251/... .

• Distance:

  10.2 miles.

• Duration
  25th Oct 2022:

  
  4 hours.

• Topology:

  Point to point (north westward).

• Ascent:

  115 metres. This is as flat as any ten mile walk gets. The gentlest of downhills most of the way. It's even more evident along the Worth Way, constructed on a disused rail track.

• Stiles:

  0 (zero). The A23-using pedestrian need have little concern regarding these.

• Landmark of note:

  The Beehive: the original terminal building for Gatwick airport.

• Feasible excursion:

  The Worth Way is the Worth Way, which you walk or you don't. Go over the M23 using Turners Hill Road if you're happy walking in the latter.

• Avoiding roads:

  No trains, now, and no cars ever. The fifth banana is dropped at Worth Lodge Farm where we are advised to take EXTREME care over the farm's vehicles. Thankfully, I have now stopped shaking.

• Footpath construction:

  A record score 5, but slightly undeserved because Worth Lodge is only a little better than dirt.

• Footpath condition:

  No significant overgrowth. One fallen tree. Just the build up of leaf mold around Worth Lodge. However, of the claimed maintenance effort, I saw no activity.

• Refreshments:

  The cafe at Rowfant can satisfy any craving for calories, and your options are limited along the Worth Way itself. If that be not your cuppa then grab a sandwich at Crawley Down (see text), or Three Bridges for more substantial.

• Vistas:

  Along the Worth Way you can often see forward for half a mile, but it doesn't really count because all you see is more of the Way. Along the cuttings? The whole walk is one of the flattest I've done.

• Blackberries:

  Much of Worth Way is designated parkland where you can't pick 🙁 Neither is Three Bridges town centre berry bliss, of course.

Route map and notes.

October is ending and bonfire night is already in earshot. The weather, which during the summer of 2022 had been extremely dry, switches into autumn mode. The forecast talks of 'sunny intervals'. Great, I thinks. Yes! Look! There is a patch of blue up there. Not going to get a soaking today, oh no. That 'chance of precipitation' estimate of 20% must be pure pessimism, right?

As my train limps into East Grinstead, reduced to 30 mph by a signalling fault, pessimism beats against the windows. No matter, I tell myself, I chose this route as an improvement on a bare dirt track. As the Worth Way is designated National Cycle Route 21, it must have a better surface. A flaw in this theory is well known: as route 20/21 goes past Mercer's Park, close to home territory, it does so on a dirt track that, in winter, makes the Somme look like the Sahara. A cyclist whose wheels sink up to their axles here cannot rely on either him or his velocipede ever being seen again.

No, take courage. The Worth Way is covered by nothing more challenging than a wet leaf. Progress along most of its six miles is a literal walk in the park. You are also able to take it all in because your gaze, normally fixed upon the GPS, is free to wander where it will. Even maps are superfluous on a route so straight and clearly signposted. No orienteering challenge, this.

The corollary of there being no path to take, apart from the Worth Way, is that there is little besides disused railway line to see. You're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. All the more striking, then, is a glimpse, to the north (at the 1.4 mile point) of the enigmatic Gullege House. This place was staring back across the field for three hundred years before the railway arrived and has done so for the sixty years after the rails were torn up. It probably hoped that its tranquility in isolation would be restored it once more. Then along comes Gatwick. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Not a great deal to see but something, perhaps, to hear. After a ½ mile what I imagine to be the whistle from an old steam train warns from a distance. Is some ghostly relic from 1967 about to bear down on me along spectral rails? Do the sleepers awake from their slumbers? No, it's just a loco on the 'Bluebell Line', a little to the south, announcing its presence.

At the 2½ mile point the first major diversion from the original rail line is indicated by the pond at Crawley Down. This, like much else hereabouts and even the line itself that you walk, is a legacy from the nouveau riche during the ¢19.   À l'Orange for me, please. For the next ⅔ mile you are on residential tarmac post-dating the line closure. Don't worry, the SPs are fine. The shops in Station Road today are where Grange Road station originally stood.

Now you are (literally) back on track and about to pass under the Turners Hill Road bridge. This shot shows how cuttings along the Worth Way cope with the weather: both sides have drainage ditches with significant capacity. Were these unnecessary then they would have been blocked by leaves and debris long ago. I suspect they are an original feature.

Complete the next mile (nearly) to Rowfant, then, without fear of a bootfull. After ten minutes under a tree, waiting for another shower, cross the driveway leading up to Rowfant Business Centre and notice an advert for the Centre Cafe. What manner of bistro might thrive this far from civilisation? A clue is provided by a line of HGVs parked along aforementioned driveway. Well, it's pretty much one o'clock and, true to her word, the proprietor at the Greasy Spoon does not experience a fit of the vapours when I enter with the wet leaf stuck to my boot. In deference to the health of your arteries I do not recommend the bacon and cheeseburger. However, I resume my odyssey without needing to check my fuel gauge again that day.

Less than a hundred metres further west you veer to the right down a slight embankment, leaving the track a second time, now to avoid the road aggregate plant stretching to Wallage Lane. There, however, you discover the extant shell of Rowfant station. Although his axe fell on some undeserving infrastructure, in targeting Rowfant, local resident Dr. Richard Beeching was presented with a not open but shut case.

A half mile on from the axeman's work you hit Turners Hill Road a second time. No slipping underneath it now; follow it south for 170 metres for your third and longest expedition off-piste. This, claims Wikipedia, avoids what was once a land-fill site via a bridleway that, although not a pure dirt track, is not up to the same standard as the rest of the Worth Way, and has the most 'mud' (I did say it was a bridleway) of the walk. Worth Lodge Farm is the last landmark before the M23.

The canonical route reaches Worth three hundred metres south of the line of the old track, and you have several alternatives for regaining it. The signage is not so helpful here, so you may wish to fire up the GPS. With luck, you hit the end of Worth Way at Billinton Drive which is then a straight run up to Haslett Avenue. One, final, short, stretch of dirt before Gatwick - the footpath between the Snooty Fox and Lidl. This crosses the Gatwick Stream and is a tad more peaceful than Hazelwick Avenue. Indeed, I will not document the trudge along Gatwick Road; it has no points of interest and is there only to get the wet weather mileage up to ten. Abandon walk at Three Bridges, if you prefer. In the summer I might plan a walk starting from Dormans station.

Gatwick rail station needs a mention, though. Unless memory deceives, it was possible, in years past, to access it without going through the airport. No more. The concourse is being redeveloped and, only when the dust settles there, can more be decided but, for the present, you have to find a way into the South Terminal where ticket machines are abundant, then go back over the A23 to get to the platforms 🙄