On the slopes of Reigate Hill, Reigate Manor is ideally located for access to the town and for…
Reigate Heath and the Mole Valley
4.3 miles (6.9kms)
About the walk
Reigate Heath is one of the last remaining areas of natural heathland in Surrey, and is both a local nature reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Most notably, these heather and acid grass heathlands are home to the rare Serotine bat, as well as a colony of southern marsh orchids. They are also the backdrop to a rich and rather intriguing history, and walking across Reigate Heath with its wide views and rolling landscapes, you soon realise that this is a special place. Here you’ll find Bronze Age burial mounds, fine houses such as Wonham Manor, and wartime pill boxes scattered across the landscape. It is a place where tales of highwaymen and hangmen abound.
Galley Hill windmill
Standing on Galley Hill (home to a gibbet until 1817), you’ll find what is believed to be the only windmill in the world that is also a consecrated chapel. The windmill dates from around 1765, and was once one of six mills in the area – only two remain, and you’ll find the other, Wray Common Windmill, on nearby Batts Hill.
The mill was operational for more than 100 years, and when it fell into disuse was converted into a chapel of ease for St Mary’s Parish Church, Reigate. The first service took place on 14 September 1880. In 1900, its new owner, Reigate Golf Course (which also did much work to preserve and repair the mill), leased the mill to the church. New sails were fitted in 1927, but when they blew off again in 1943, they proved too expensive to replace. Despite ongoing repairs and maintenance, a survey revealed that although the roundhouse was in a good condition, the mill was not and, in 1962, it was purchased by Reigate Borough Council. Over the next two years the mill was renovated and new sails fitted, with further restoration in 2002. Today the sails no longer turn, and it isn’t open to the public. But you can visit the church and take a look at the massive crosstrees and quarterbars that support the structure above. Occasional services are still held in the church.
Walk directions
Take the path from the top corner of the car park on the eastern side of Flanchford Road, by a large oak tree, and turn right on a sandy path that soon broadens. Follow it into the trees and then continue across the golf course, heading towards houses, to reach a road. Turn left opposite The Old Schoolhouse, towards the Skimmington Castle pub. Before you reach the pub, turn left onto the public bridleway, which then skirts around the pub and car park.
Head through the trees with paddocks on your right. At the lane, turn right onto the driveway, and go through a gate towards Littleton Manor Farm. After the barn, bear right and continue ahead to pass farmhouses on your left, then continuing onto a fenced path between paddocks. Before the track bends right, cross the stile straight ahead and then turn left on a path beside a fence and young staked trees and bushes. Cross a stile to Flanchford Road.
Cross straight over and keep ahead on the signed public byway opposite. Continue on this broad gravel track to pass a house and barn on your left, a hand-painted sign points ahead to Ricebridge Farm. Continue on the same track, and, at a four-way signpost, turn left, with the woods on your left and a field right. Just past Ricebridge Farm, turn right over a waymarked stile to follow the public footpath along the right-hand field edge. Continue on the waymarked path as it leads between a wartime pill box and the hedge, crossing a stream before heading through an open field, with more pill boxes, to a kissing gate. Pass through and then cross the bridge to emerge on Wonham Lane, opposite Wonham Mill (now converted into housing).
Turn left and keep going straight ahead, uphill to pass houses on your right, then railings on your left. Before the gated entrance to Wonham Manor, turn right through a gate on a signed bridleway and head steeply uphill into woodland. Emerge to continue between a post-and-wire fence, with a field on your left. At a four-way footpath sign, turn right through a kissing gate onto the Greensand Way and follow the field edge through a second kissing gate. Continue to a third kissing gate and emerge onto Dungates Lane by Fourpenny Cottage.
Turn right and continue, passing The Granary cottage on your right and Dungates Farm on your left. Just after you cross a stream, turn right, signed The Greensand Way, and continue to the edge of Reigate Heath Golf Course, beside Ivy Cottage.
Cross the golf course with care (heading towards the windmill), then climb the low, heather-clad hill towards the clubhouse and windmill. Turn left through the car park and then, with Golf Cottage on your left, turn right down a path, and then right again on a sandy track. Just before reaching the road, turn left and follow the path parallel to the road all the way back to the car park.
Additional information
Rural paths, bridleways and village roads, 3 stiles
Lowland landscape in Mole Valley
Take care at the village road crossings, and keep on lead across across farmland and golf course
OS Explorer 146 Dorking, Box Hill & Reigate
Car park at Reigate Heath, Flanchard Road
None on route
WALKING IN SAFETY
Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.
Find out more
Also in the area
About the area
Discover Surrey
Surrey may be better known for its suburbia than its scenery, but the image is unjust. Over a quarter of the county’s landscapes are official Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and along the downs and the greensand ridge you can gaze to distant horizons with hardly a building in sight. This is one of England’s most wooded counties, and has more village greens than any other shire. You’ll find sandy tracks and cottage gardens, folded hillsides and welcoming village inns. There’s variety, too, as the fields and meadows of the east give way to the wooded downs and valleys west of the River Mole.
Of course there are also large built-up areas, mainly within and around the M25; but even here you can still find appealing visits and days out. On the fringe of Greater London you can picnic in Chaldon’s hay meadows, explore the wide open downs at Epsom, or drift idly beside the broad reaches of the stately River Thames. Deep in the Surrey countryside you’ll discover the Romans at Farley Heath, and mingle with the monks at England’s first Cistercian monastery. You’ll see buildings by great architects like Edwin Lutyens and Sir George Gilbert Scott, and meet authors too, from John Donne to Agatha Christie.
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