The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Thursday, 3 November 2016

Leith Hill (TQ139431; 295m)

Spending a couple of nights with friends in Crawley, I took the opportunity today to nip over to Leith Hill. It had been on the agenda for the trip in January 2015, but a poorly engine (Colin's, not mine) forced a sudden curtailment of that particular trip.

A cold night last night led into a lovely day today, although we didn't really capitalise on it, as you'll see from the distance stat at the bottom of this post. It turned out to be an even shorter outing than expected, as our intended car park bore a height barrier sitting too low for Colin's stature, forcing us into an alternative car park, nearer to our objective.

A staircase led us up from there and, such was my level of research for this trip, I was surprised to find a tower on the top:


I was even more surprised to find that we could go up it for a modest £2 per head. Talking of heads, we donned our best headwear for the occasion:


And then changed to our second best for a further selfie:


The views from the top of the tower were superb. Definitely worth the £2 (moreover as I can say with some certainty that I've been to the highest accessible spot on this hill!):


We strung the walk out by taking a slightly longer way back, brining it in at, oooh, almost a mile. The far better stats of the day involve the quantities of tea and cake consumed with friends.

3 comments:

  1. I was there on a super sunny day, and there was a little café housed in the bottom of the tower. The perfect M?

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  2. Inside the tower there was information on its history. The current 'guardian' (I'm sure that wasn't the word used, but can't remember the right one) of the tower, who holds the cafe concession, is the fourth in its history. The first held the position for 65 years, finally retiring in 1985.

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  3. Loving the hats, particularly your second 😄

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