DAY 9 - ABINGER HAMMER TO GUILDFORD CATHEDRAL

DAY 9                                  Sunday 28th September 2014

ROUTE                                Abinger Hammer to Guildford Cathedral

DISTANCE                          11.9 miles
CUMULATIVE MILEAGE    118.1 miles

START POINT                    White Down Lane, Abinger Hammer - TQ114 489

FINISH POINT                    Guildford Cathedral - SU 987 500

WEATHER                          Glorious sunshine and very warm

WALKERS                          Cally Charman, Rod Boreham and Graham Palmer

SUPPORT DRIVER            Mike Gercke

SUFFER SCORE                3 (a shorter final leg with the end in sight and good company!)    
    (On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being easy and 10 being unbearable!) 

CTOG AWARD                   ALL OUR SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS
                                           With you, CTOG has been a great success raising valuable funds for 
                                           the work of Guildford Street Angels enabling us to reach out and help
                                           more people - thank you everyone!

                                                      
Canterbury seems such a long time ago and here we are on Day 9….and what a day! 

We woke to the best weather of the week so far - clear blue skies and warm sunshine.
Praise the Lord!

Mike rounded up the team first thing in the support vehicle and we headed back to White Down Lane near Abinger Hammer where we had finished walking on the previous day.  Here we were delighted to welcome Annie Cox, Ed Varley and Andy Wheeler as they joined us on our walk back to Guildford.

Rod, Andy, Mike, Graham, Cally and Annie....with Ed behind the lens!

Our route would take us firstly to Newlands Corner, then on to St Martha’s Hill and then finally along the Pilgrims Way back to the River Wey and from there up to the Cathedral. 

Rays of sunshine!

Miles of smiles!

Ed and Graham

Bright blue skies and glorious sunshine in the Surrey Hills

The walk to Newlands Corner led us through the gently undulating paths of Blatchford Downs and Shere Woodlands where we came across the famous WWII pillboxes which were hastily built all over the British Isles to repel an anticipated German invasion.  The network of pillboxes provided a stop line and were part of the defences to protect London with the hills themselves forming a natural defence and a perfect position from which to guard against an attack and resist an advance on the country's capital.

Newlands Corner approached and there was time for a quick drink stop before heading off towards St Martha’s for lunch.  Like Box Hill that we visited yesterday, Newlands Corner is a very popular beauty spot and a great place for a picnic on a sunny day.  It is also a haven for motorcyclists who meet, exchange stories and generally stand around admiring each other’s bikes!  It was also the scene of crime writer Agatha Christie’s apparent "disappearance" in December 1926 when her car was found overhanging a chalk pit near Newlands Corner, an interesting story in itself.  Of course, the famous writer lived for a further 50 years before eventually dying in 1976.

Surrey Hills

Good are the paths He leads us on.....especially the one leading from Canterbury to Guildford!

There was not much time available to stop longer as we had a lunch appointment on the other side of St Martha’s Hill.  As we reached the Church of St. Martha-on-the-Hill it was a welcome sight to see Carolyn Gercke and Fiona Ford who had walked up from the opposite side of the hill to meet us.   

St. Martha-On-The-Hill

Appropriate to our walk from Canterbury, the original name of St Martha’s is believed to derive from Saints and Martyrs hill, the martyr being St Thomas of Canterbury.  Although this popular church dates back to the 12^th century, it fell into ruins by the 18^th century and was rebuilt between 1848-1850.  It's a lovely church in a peaceful position and commands a fantastic view over the Surrey Hills....

A short stroll down the other side of the hill and we had time to picnic on the grass adjacent to the car park.  It was such a beautiful day and we all spread out on the grass to enjoy our lunch.  We were not due at the cathedral until 4.30pm and so there was plenty of time for the walking team to regale their friends with stories of the walk so far and share a bite to eat.......and for some of us to just enjoy the chance to catnap in the sun!

Cally with best friend and ex-Street Angel, Caroline Layzell (with Graham and Inca in the background!)

Ed Varley, Carolyn Gercke and Ray and Wendy Dunnett

Food and fun in the sun.......

And a chance to catch up on some zzzzzz's!!

From St Martha’s we walked through Chantry Wood to pick up the Pilgrims Way as we headed towards the A281 at Shalford fields.

Rod leads some of the walkers off through the Chantries....

A brass band practices on Shalford playing fields - must have known we were coming!

From there we followed the river back to the centre of Guildford where we had out last drink stop before heading up to the cathedral - a chance to spend some time talking to passers by....

Jim and Rod - smiling as usual!!!

The "Map Meister", smiling with relief after having brought us all the way safely back to Guildford

Packing up one last time to make sure we get to the church on time!

Street Angels in their natural habitat!

The final walk through the streets of Guildford up to the cathedral......

A first glimpse of the Cathedral....almost within touching distance now

Rod and Cally leading the way.....

 

As we stopped at the foot of Stag Hill, leading up to the cathedral, we were delighted to see family, friends and some more of our Street Angel colleagues awaiting our return.  

Our white van, a familiar and welcome sight along the way awaits our arrival at the bottom of Stag Hill

Guildford Cathedral - just one more hill to climb!

Greetings!

Family and friends

The CTOG team led everyone up the main drive to the front of the cathedral, followed by our three drivers in the van,  where we were met by the Dean of Guildford, The Very Revd Dianna Gwilliams.  

The intrepid hikers step out towards the final destination

Triumphant approach

Dianna Gwilliams, Dean of Guildford, rushes out to greet us!

Dianna warmly welcomes the team on their homecoming

Dianna joins a fully reunited team for a photo shoot

At the send off in Canterbury a week earlier, both the Dean of Canterbury and the Bishop of Canterbury had written letters which the team had brought all the way back to Guildford securely carried in a waterproof envelope down the back of Cally's daypack. These were duly passed to the  Dean to open and read to the people who had gathered.

Dianna reads out the letter written by The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury

Letter from the Dean of Canterbury to the people of Guildford

Rod reads out the message from Bishop Trevor Willmott

Letter from Bishop Trevor to Guildford Street Angels

 

Following a prayer by the Dean, who also presented cards to the team, Rod Boreham said a few words about the experience of the walk and invited everyone to enjoy a cup of tea and cake in the cathedral which had been very kindly arranged by the Dean.

Cards presented to the team by Dianna Gwilliams

And that’s it!  CTOG14 has proved to be a tremendous team success - fortunately no injuries or mishaps after having walked the equivalent of 4½ marathons in just over a week but lots of great memories to cherish and new friendships forged.  We would like to thank all of our sponsors and supporters - we could not have done it without you and current predictions are that when we have collected in all our pledges, we will have met and hopefully exceeded the initial fundraising target of £7,500 which is a great achievement. 

We hope you have enjoyed our daily blog (the story of the walk) written by the team as it happened.  We enjoyed writing it and thank you for supporting CTOG14 by reading it.

Please visit our fundraising page - www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/CTOG14

Remember, just £1 can make a huge difference in someone's life today - Street Angels are there to help anyone in need.....

Apart from raising much needed funds for Guildford Street Angels, CTOG14 is also about raising awareness for all the teams of Street Angels who work in the towns and cities throughout the whole of the UK.  It is those Street Angels who are the real heroes and we hope this blog has helped to raise awareness and highlight the invaluable work of Street Angels.   

The CTOG14 team dedicate this blog to all Street Angels for their work and professionalism out on the streets of the UK every week.

DAY 8 - REIGATE TO ABINGER HAMMER

DAY 8                                  Saturday 27th September 2014

ROUTE                                Reigate to Abinger Hammer

DISTANCE                          12.7 miles
CUMULATIVE MILEAGE    106.2 miles

START POINT                    Colley Hill, Reigate - TQ 248 522

FINISH POINT                    White Down Lane, Abinger Hammer - TQ114 489

WEATHER                          Overcast but thankfully dry

WALKERS                          Cally Charman, Rod Boreham and Graham Palmer

SUPPORT DRIVER            Mike Gercke

SUFFER SCORE                5 (pleased to be on familiar territory)    
    (On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being easy and 10 being unbearable!) 

CTOG AWARD                   Mike Gercke
                                           Awarded for his unfailing support of the team in spite of not being
                                           able to walk with the team as originally planned, his invaluable input in
                                           the planning stages and his willingness to take over driving the crew 
                                           van on the final weekend and in so doing sacrifice watching the Ryder 
                                           Cup!
                                                      

Day 8 dawns and….the end is nigh!   

The day was a familiar one for at least two members of the team as many training sessions and walks had been made in this part of the Surrey Hills.  Firstly we were pleased to have Mike Gercke back as an active member of the team, taking over from Jim Rice as the all-important driver of the support vehicle.  Mike had originally planned to be part of the walking team but had to pull out at short notice but it is great that he has rejoined the team and even managed to walk short sections of the route with us today.  We were also delighted to welcome Annelise Wilkinson, one of our Street Angels, who joined the walking team for the whole day.

The original team is happily reunited

Annelise, pretty in pink, at the start of the day

The start of the day was overcast and cooler than of late.  Having returned to Colley Hill near Reigate we set off around 10am.  Almost immediately we descended steeply to manoeuvre around Juniper Hill and inevitably had to rise steeply again on the other side which was a bit of a shock to cold muscles so early in the day. 

Rising to the early challenges

We abandoned our first meeting of the day with Mike and the support vehicle due to the road being closed whilst a new gas main was being laid and so it was agreed that we would next meet up with Mike at our lunch-time stop at Box Hill.

Our route to Box Hill was through woods and, in an attempt to not feel left out, Graham followed in Cally’s and Rod’s footsteps and took a fall on this section.  The tally was now one-a-piece!  

The North Downs Way passed the lime kilns of Betchworth Quarry and the limeworks at Brockham.  The limeworks were built in the 19^th century to mine the hills of the North Downs.  However, in spite of being closed down in 1936 they achieved a ‘Site of Scientific Interest’ status in 1975 due to their importance to the landscape of England’s industrial heritage.  The works were serviced by their own private narrow gauge railway to deliver chalk from the quarries to the kilns and the unused Smidth kiln still forms a striking feature on the North Downs. The works also featured in episodes of Doctor Who back in the 70’s.

The imposing Smidth kiln

We knew that the famous Box Hill was ahead as the route started to climb and there was an elevation change of 350 ft. before we reached the top of the hill.   

Long sections of steep terrain making us very warm!

On the steep upward climb we came across the grave of ‘Quick’ which was the favourite greyhound of the wife of a Mr Barnholdt who was the owner of the land at the time the dog met its demise.

Quick's grave

The final walk up to the magnificent viewing point at Box Hill signalled both a photo opportunity for the team and also time to stop for coffee along with the hundreds of cyclists who regularly challenge themselves with the climb up the ‘zig-zag’ which of course was used as part of the road race course for the London 2012 Olympic Games.  

Striding towards Mike as he meets us on the approach to the top of Box Hill

Atop Box Hill with Dorking in the background

We love our chaplain!

 Coffee over and we were on our way again and after just 0.2 miles we notched up 100 miles since leaving Canterbury last Saturday. 

Almost as soon as we had left the heights of Box Hill we started the steep descent down the steps that would lead us to the iconic ‘Stepping Stones’ that feature as the cover photo on the CTOG14 Facebook site.   

Stepping out on the stones

The team pose for the obligatory photo

Another photo opportunity that could not be missed and we were on our way again, this time crossing the busy A24 before entering the world-famous Denbies wine estate.  The estate comprises some 627 acres in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  Its 265 acres of vines are three times larger than any other vineyard in the UK and produce some of the finest sparkling and table wines in Europe.  

Denbies vines as viewed from Box Hill

Denbies Wine Estate

The gentle uphill walk through Denbies brought us out at Ranmore Common where once again we met up with Mike in the support vehicle.  

Crossing the main thoroughfare across Ranmore Common

A quick drink stop and we set off on the final leg of the day which would end just  east of Gomshall - a total distance of 12.7 miles for Day 8.

 

Familiar paths across Ranmore Common

One of several pill boxes hidden amongst the trees on Ranmore Common

A much needed drinks stop on the final leg

It is hard to believe that we are just one day away from completing our walk from Canterbury to  Guildford Cathedral .  It seemed such a long time ago that we set off from Canterbury Cathedral last Saturday.   

The team really hopes that people will turn out on Sunday (28^th) and join us on our walk as we head back to Guildford.  We will be stopping for lunch at St Martha’s where we invite you all to bring a picnic and share some time chatting with the team.  We also hope that on our final day we can bring our fund-raising total up to our target amount of £7,500 to ensure that the important work of Guildford Street Angels can continue in the future.

www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/CTOG14