Brookwood Heath from Pirbright

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About
Gallery
Instagram reel showing this place
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

About

Two hundred years ago lowland heathland covered most of West Surrey but now less than a fifth of it remains, making it an endangered type of habitat. Brookwood Heath is one such area, a small open landscape covered in heathers, gorse and tree scrub tucked away behind the village of Pirbright in the borough of Guildford. As is typical of this type of heathland, there is also bracken, acid grassland, bogs, bare sandy and peaty ground, scattered trees and water.

Lowland heathland is an internationally rare and unique habitat, supporting a variety of specialised plants and wildlife. Because of the rarity of lowland heathland, Brookwood Heath has been designated a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) within the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area (SPA).

Brookwood Heath is bordered by Brookwood cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe, and listed as a Grade I site in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Brookwood originally was accessible by rail from a special station – the London Necropolis railway station – next to London’s Waterloo station. Trains had passenger carriages reserved for different classes and other carriages for coffins (also for different classes), and ran into the cemetery on a dedicated branch. From there, passengers and coffins were transported by horse-drawn vehicles. Return tickets were issued for mourners and single tickets for the dead. The station was demolished after suffering bomb damage during World War II.

Brookwood Heath is the final resting place of the Scottish artist Arthur Melville, who died locally in 1904 at the age of 49. A successful painter, he experienced a personal financial crisis later in his life and moved with his wife, Ethel, and daughter, Marion, to live in a friend’s cottage (named ‘Redlands’) in Witley. In early 1904, the family went travelling through Spain, where both he and Ethel contracted typhoid. Ethel survived but Arthur passed away at home in August of that year. In 2022, his grave was restored by the Brookwood Cemetery Society.

The Gallery: What’s it like here?

At the village green.

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Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from the Cricketers on the Green pub in Pirbright village. Also on AllTrails. This walk takes you through Pirbright’s lanes, loops around Brookkwood Heath and back again.

Please note that SSWG came here on a Sunday morning and there was a clay pigeon shoot going on adjacent to the rear of the heath. I’ve never known it before, but I haven’t also made a note of if other visits were on a Sunday so it may be that there is a clay pigeon club that meets on a Sunday – just means this might not be a suitable walk for skittish dogs.

Length: approximately 2.3 miles/3.9 km
Terrain: Pretty flat walk but a little uneven underfoot in a few places and to cross a stream/water there’s a narrow plank bridge. There are a few sections along very quiet lanes (never actually experienced a car on them). Some of the paths can be muddy and waterlogged in the colder months of the year.
Stiles/kissing gates? No stiles, a couple of gates

Take the tarmac access track down the left hand side of the Cricketers on the Green pub, which has a finger post by it for the footpath.

Go through the gate and keep walking past a business called Parogon, which is on your right. You’ll come to another vehicle gate, pass to the left of it onto the footpath.

After a few paces, follow the path around to the right (there is a finger post ahead pointing right but you may miss it in the spring/summer when the foliage is thick) and pass a derelict brick hut tucked to the right of the path.

Follow the long, straight path ahead between rows of trees and it’ll go round to the left and between a fallen tree trunk that has been sawn in half to allow you to pass through. There’s also another massive fallen tree that the path goes alongside and then it forks – keep left alongside the fallen tree and wind along and over a small plank bridge, through a metal gate and onto a field.

Follow the path through the field towards a fence and house on the right. Skirt the fence and exit the field through the metal gate, then follow the narrow path round the corner and up the steps to the lane. The field ahead often has miniature ponies in.

Turn left onto the lane and head towards the metal vehicle gate, then take the footpath to the right of it and go through the slalom next to the cattle grid.

After a little way, the mud underfoot is replaced by gravel and then tarmac as you pass houses left and right. At the bottom of the lane, where the house opposite has a sign on the gate for Sandyburn, turn left and go over the speed bump.

Go over a second speed bump and turn right at the end of the fence line, walking past the metal vehicle gate.

Ahead and to the right, there’s a wide path with a metal pole across it. Ignore this and take the smaller path immediately to the left of it.

After a few paces, turn left off this, go a couple of steps and cross over another path and continue ahead on a small winding path through the scrub.

At the next path cutting across, dog leg left then immediately right and go through the gate onto Brookwood Heath.

Where the path splits ahead to go up a mound, take the one on the left and continue ahead then down and use the planks to cross the water.

On the other side, continue straight ahead with the fence on your left. Take care going over a bumpy bit and carry on along the edge of the open heath, which stretches away to your right.

Ignore any gates to the left and when you get to the end, turn right and continue to walk the perimeter with fence on your left. Behind this fence lies Brookwood cemetery.

Pass the grave of Arthur Melville and then a vehicle gate (unused!) on the left and a path on the right.

Continue ahead between the two far right tall trees of the four in a row, coming off the perimeter path, which carries on over to your left. Once through the line of four trees, you’re now walking through the open heath towards a pond, which will shortly be on your left.

Pass the pond and follow the path round to the right towards the trees.

Pass a big dip/ditch on the left, which is the same body of water you crossed earlier.

Go through the kissing gate and turn right then almost immediately left onto a tiny narrow path through trees.

After a few paces, you come to a path called Malthouse Lane – turn right onto this. Keep an eye out for an information board on the left about heathland habitats.

Turn left at a cross paths by a big fir tree and head out across the open heath.

Cross over the wide grassy path and through the gap in the trees ahead.

After a few steps, you’ll come to the gravel/dirt lane – go right. Underfoot the ground surface changes to tarmac – follow the lane round to the right and over the speed bump.

Turn left onto Whites Lane opposite Sandyburn (on your right) and you’ll now retrace your way back to the village green.

This means continuing ahead over the gravel at the end of the tarmac and onto the footpath. Go through the slalom next to the cattle grid. Walk down the lane towards the lovely old house (Whites farm) and turn right just before it, down the stele and round through the metal gate into the field.

Cross the field and go through the metal gate, over the plank bridge and follow the path through the woods. Back between the fallen tree and round to the right, then along the long straight between rows of trees and pass the derelict brick hut (now on your left.)

Follow the path round to the left and pass the vehicle barrier onto the lane. Pass Parogon (now on the left), then go through the gate and follow the lane back to the village green.