Wisley Airfield and Bolder Mere

Page contents

About
Gallery
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

PLEASE NOTE – There are major ‘improvement’ works at the M25/A3 junction until the end of time (well, 2025) and, sadly, they are causing massive disruption both to the landscape and to the woodlands on all four adjoining woodland areas (Silvermere, Wisley Common, Wisley Airfield and Boldermere, Ockham Common, and the privately-owned Painshill Park.) Because of this, I can’t be confident that the routes I have written out for these locations aren’t affected so I would NOT trust the descriptions on this page for the time being – and I have no intention of going to any of these places to check while the roadworks mean the traffic around them is a bloody nightmare. So, if you decide to visit these locations using this website for guidance around them, proceed with caution.

About

Wisley Airfield is a former wartime airfield located alongside the A3 in the Parish of Ockham near Wisley.

Despite being crisscrossed by several footpaths and really close to busy Ockham Common, Wisley Common and RHS Wisley Gardens, very few people walk here and the area has an abandoned feel about it. It’s not the most picturesque place admittedly, but it holds a certain charm, with its crumbling runway slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. It’s kinda eery and (without saying too much about my imagination’s tendency to run riot) you can pretend you’re in a post-apocalyptic landscape and trying to steer clear of zombies (but without feeling freaked out because it’s just pretend. Or is it?)

The land on which the airfield was built was requisitioned in 1942 during WWII. Originally a grass airstrip, the runway was converted to tarmac in 1952 and mainly used to test Vickers Wellington Bomber aircraft built at nearby Weybridge. Flying ceased in 1973 because the runway was too short for large modern aircraft and was too close to Heathrow. All structures onsite were removed, except for the runway, and the land was sold back to its former owners in 1980 for agricultural use.

Wisley Airfield has been used as a film location because of the surrounding unspoilt countryside and its close proximity to London. Steven Spielberg re-created the landscape of northern France for the filming of War Horse here in October 2010. Award-winning British film director John Boorman reconstructed a wartime suburban London street on part of the runway as the main film set for his 1987 autobiographical comedy Hope and Glory.

In March 2020, Taylor Wimpey bought a 284-acre area of the former airfield, earmarking it for the development of 2,000 new homes under the Guildford Borough Council Local Plan. Dubbed the Wisley New Town, it has been fiercely opposed and a public consultation is ongoing. All the latest on this ‘will it go ahead/won’t it go ahead’ drama is on its dedicated website. High octane stuff. (I’d quite like a Wisley New Town so I could possibly move there. That said, I doubt normal people on normal incomes will be able to afford any of the shoebox they’ll inevitably build).

To reach the airfield, most people park in one of the car parks on Old Lane (mainly the Ockham Forest one) and cut through the relatively small bit of common land over the road from the vast expanse of Ockham Common and Chatley Heath. It is here you will also find a sizeable lake, Bolder Mere, which is (apparently) a ‘typical Surrey woodland lake with a fabulous wetland clearing along the southern edge’ where you may well spot dragonflies and damselflies.

Back in 2012, the lake was the setting of a right brouhaha featuring hooligan fish and damselflies in distress. The presence of non-native carp in the lake was disrupting the fragile ecosystem and threatening the survival of native aquatic plants, invertebrates and insects. The hero of our story is the Surrey Wildlife Trust, which manages the area and saved the day by removing a number of the unwelcome trespassers – including one that weighed a whopping 14kg. Hurrah for that!

Gallery: What’s it like here?

Parking

Park at Ockham Forest car Old Lane park – the smaller of the two car parks on this road (and the one that doesn’t have Ockham Bites cafe in it).

GOOGLEMAPS LINK: https://goo.gl/maps/vk3QjKA7p9WKcXvE9

WHAT3WORDS: https://w3w.co/fires.stove.risen

NEAREST POSTCODE: KT11 1ND

If the Forest car park is full, you can park in the larger Boldermere car park (where the cafe is) and there is a path that connects the two.

GOOGLEMAPS LINK: https://goo.gl/maps/povFCV1Yf6aD4RMTA

WHAT3WORDS: https://w3w.co/wells.kick.raft

NEAREST POSTCODE: KT11 1NR

Poo bins?

At the car park, please use it.

Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from Ockham Forest Old Lane car park that takes you through the woods alongside Bolder Mere Lake, then around the old disused Wisley airfield. The route is also on AllTrails.

Length: approximately 2.2 miles/3.5km
Terrain: Flat walk through woods, on tarmac runway and grassy paths. You will cross Old Lane twice, which can be busy, and there is a very short section of walk along quiet Elm Lane. Parts of this walk – by the lake both outward and return – involve narrow boardwalks so not for hounds or humans that are unsteady on their feet or unhappy walking on narrow raised planks above a bog!
Stiles/kissing gates? No stiles, no kissing gates

Park in Ockham Forest Old Lane car park and walk to the “front” of the car park by the road. Cross the road and take the path opposite that has three wooden posts in front of it. Follow this straight ahead, bearing slightly right (and ignoring the fork off to the left) down to the boardwalk.

Three wooden posts mark the start of the path opposite the car park — *Three wooden posts mark the start of the path*

Jett on the boardwalk that runs along Bolder Mere — *Three wooden posts mark the start of the path*

At the end of the stretch of boards, turn right along one more plank and then off onto a mud path down to Bolder Mere. Follow the path around to the left and walk along with the lake on your right. You’ll be able to hear the thundering roar of traffic on the A3, which is a pity, but that’s the price of modern life. At the clearing where the path passes by the waters edge by a couple of large trees, turn left and head into the woods.

Boldermere Lake — *Bolder Mere on the right*

Pass a fallen tree trunk on the right (which lays alongside a little path) and, a few steps after this, turn right.

Jett by a fallen tree in the woods — Jett’s placement in this image is a bit misleading as it looks like you should turn right before the tree trunk. Here, you actually want to bear to the left of the tree trunk (and of that big tree next to it) – the right turn is just after it.

This path goes through the woods and there’s not much to say as it’s all trees, but the low-level scrub on either side of the path comes to a stop and it opens out with very little vegetation at ground level while the trees tower up around you. Keep straight – it can be hard to discern a path here but, looking ahead, you should see one trampled by walkers that bears slightly to the left (there is also another to the right – ignore it). Take the left/more ahead path. It heads away from the lake towards a den/stick hut which has a tree in front of it with fungi growing up the trunk.

Tree in front of den/stick hut that has fungi growing on its trunk — *Tree in front of den/stick hut has fungi growing on its trunk*

Pass the den and turn left at the clear path that you come to, passing a long fallen tree trunk, which is to the left of the path. A little way after this tree trunk, there’s a really small cross paths – it’s barely noticeable at some times of the year (and the path on the left is more noticeable than the one on the right, which is the one you want). Turn right and follow it through the woods, passing a house on the left and ignoring a little crosspaths where the left-hand path goes to the house. Keep on winding along, and at a little fork, bear right and around rhododendrons down and over a ditch/stream (often has branches across it). The A3 road is quite close on the right so you may want your dog on a lead. After some way, you’ll come to a small cross paths, go right down this and pass some broken bits of silver birch tree. Keep going a little further and you’ll come out at Elm Lane. It’s a quiet lane but a road nonetheless so be careful.

Turn right and then left just after the Restricted Parking signs and go through the gap onto the airfield site. Walk straight ahead through the very middle of this expanse of concrete, where the weeds are breaking up through the gaps between the concrete slabs in rigid lines. It’s always been quiet when I have been here, and hard to imagine that this area once hosted planes.

Gap into the airfield — *Through the gap into the airfield*

Weeds breaking through the concrete — *Through the gap into the airfield*

When you get to the end of the open bit, keep straight ahead on the narrow path that goes up through the brambles – there are signs about private land, but this is a public footpath. It leads straight through the middle of a field to a couple of grey barriers ahead that stretch across the width of the runway.

Technically, to stay on the public right of way, you have to cross the runway between the two barriers (these mark the footpath) and then the path, on the OS map, comes diagonally back across the runway. That’s pretty daft really, so just turn left when you reach the barriers and walk along the edge of the runway/grass towards another set of grey barriers. Continue past these along the runway to a third set of grey barriers. Turn left at these and down a grassy path that leads to a five-bar gate.

Jett at barriers across the runway — *Walk through the second set of grey barriers, down to the third*

Go through the gate and walk straight down the tree lined path towards another five-bar gate but don’t go through it – turn left just before you reach it and walk down the side of a big bramble bush and along the fence line. At the end of this field, go through the wooden five-bar gate over to the right, next to a metal vehicle gate, and cross over Elm Lane, which isn’t so much a lane here as a mud track.

Jett on a tree lined path — *Tree-lined path to a gate*

Pass to the side of another vehicle barrier on the other side of the lane/track. This has a fallen tree to its right (you can see the massive root ball in the photo below) and another fallen tree just after it to the left of the path. Go straight over at the cross paths – do keep your eyes peeled as in some seasons, you may not notice them – and keep going down to the area I mentioned earlier where there’s not much ground-level vegetation. At this open area, turn right.

*There are fallen trees either side of the barrier*

Follow this straight, ignoring the path off to the left that you came up earlier from the lake. Pass between a fallen trunk that has been sawn through, a fallen tree that came down in the February 2022 storms (so may get cleared at some point and not be here any more – do message me if that has happened!), and a tree that has snapped halfway up its trunk and is hanging in an ungainly manner to the left.

Jett on path between sawn tree trunk — *Between sawn tree trunk*

Snapped tree — *Between sawn tree trunk*

The path will curve to the left – then walk on one plank of narrow boardwalk, turning right and onto the wider boardwalk. At the end of this, put your dog on lead to continue straight back to the road and the car park beyond it.