25 March, 2021 — Ockam and Wisley Commons with Carol
Distance 5.5 miles (8.9 km)

This is where Carol and I had our first walk with the Guildford Ramblers, many years ago. I had enquired about walks with Guildford U3A but Harry, the walk leader, suggested we try the ramblers instead and invited us to join them on a walk in this area.

We parked at the Boldermere carpark by the cafe. It was very busy but we just managed to find a space.

We set off in search of the Chatley Heath Semaphore Tower (Information about the tower) and, having found it and after taking photos of it, continued on beyond.

Our next stop was the Mausoleum. I had completely forgotten about it until we stumbled upon it. When I saw it, I remembered that we had walked past it on that first ramble all those years ago. It’s called the Samuelson Mausoleum and is a Grade II listed building. You can read about it here.

Our next landmark was the disused Wisley Airfield. The public footpath through Hatchford Wood took us down to quite a busy main road without a foot pavement and we had to walk along this for a short distance. It looked like there was a path that would take us to the road directly opposite the path on to the airfield but this was not marked on the map. This would be worth exploring as it would be better and safer to avoid walking along the road at all.

As we set off across the airfield it started to rain. The public footpath went along to a farm on the other side of the runway but it was not well maintained and at one point we lost it altogether before again picking up the main track. I think most people just walk along the airfield.

We crossed the airfield again and went over the A3 footbridge into Wisley Gardens where we found a bench under cover to have our coffee break.

After coffee we went across to Wisley Common, up to the M25 and then back across another footbridge to the carpark and the cafe. By this time it was raining rather heavily so we bought our bacon bap (me) and sausage sandwich (Carol) and took our food back to the car. This cafe does a rather nice bacon bap.