Leith Hill

County - Surrey

Elevation – 295m

Date – 25/10/2020

Distance – 3.56m

Elevation climbed - 98m

It made sense to begin the deliberate attempt on County Tops at my “home” Top of Leith Hill, Surrey’s highest point. I’d cycled up here (or, at least, the road up) a couple of times, but never walked it.

My God it’s a long way. Nearly an hour in the car on a soggy late October morning, leaving the kids in bed as I tried to explain the County Tops plan to a bemused Lisa, who couldn’t understand why we were driving so far for such a poxy walk.

The Surrey Hills are by some distance the nicest part of Surrey, and so the final stretches of the drive were pretty spectacular amidst the autumn colours of the trees and the glimpses of soaring views from the hillsides. Eventually we found the NT car park in the midst of the woods and parked up. I realised it was really no distance to the summit but what the hell, I was here to smash County Tops, not have a nice walk.

The side of Leith Hill is pretty steep and the roads zigzag up it before you get to the paths. I stood on the roadside of narrow lane as Lisa made her way up a muddy slope to join me. As I waited a car stopped, thinking I was waiting to cross. I pointed at Lisa, emerging up the bank, and the driver waved. As he waited the giant red pickup behind him honked angrily; we crossed over and he wound down his window. “Get out of the middle of the road you f---ing pricks!” A charming start.

Most of the walk looked like this

The walk took us up through the woods and onto a bridleway, where it quickly became apparent we were sharing the hill with an absolute herd of mountain bikers. Whilst it looked like fun, they charged down the steep, narrow, leaf-strewn paths with abandon, forcing walkers to dive out of their way as the leapt round every curve. And then they splashed my jeans and got them all muddy. Sheesh.

Bloody cyclists!

Eventually (I make it sound like a long time, it was less than 1.5km) the woodland opened into a clearing and the Leith Hill Tower reared up in front of us. Sadly the tower was closed, but there was a wee café at the bottom selling coffees to the ten thousand walkers and cyclists who’d somehow also managed to smash the ascent.

Leith Hill Tower. Cafe and yummy mummies not in view

We admired the views for a bit – you could see Wembley Stadium in one way and Ditchling Beacon (a future County Top target) the other, then mooched back through the woods, where the peaceful silence was shattered by a group of lost Duke of Edinburgh award kids shouting “WHERE’S ABDULLAH??. We found poor Abdullah traipsing along a muddy path a few hundred yards behind his classmates, looking like he couldn’t give two shits about getting up that County Top.

Wembley Stadium. Just behind that fire.

That's Ditchling Beacon in the distance, County Top of East Sussex. I'll have that one day!

We got our muddy boots back to the car, a whole 55 minutes after setting off. It took twice that to get there. The sense of anti-climax doubled when we popped into Sainsbury’s on the way back to get the shop in. Still. I’d chalked another one off, and that’s the main thing huh.