Albury

About
Gallery
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

About

Albury is a well-to-do village in the Surrey Hills and about three miles east of Guildford. As well as the residential village itself, Albury includes a patch of woody heathland called Albury Heath and the mixed woodlands of Albury Warren. It’s also home to Albury Park mansion, which has featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Midsomer Murders.

Parking

Park on Church Lane or Weston Fields. These are residential village streets – please park courteously.

WHAT3WORDs: https://w3w.co/fried.notice.stuck

GOOGLEMAPS LINK: https://maps.app.goo.gl/hSkmxBLDGdVN8vr48

NEAREST POSTCODE: GU5 9AJ

Poo bins?

One on the roadside at the junction of Church Lane and Weston Fields.

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Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from St Peter & St Paul’s Church in Church Lane in Albury village. Also on my AllTrails account. It takes you up Warren Lane into Albury Warren and loops through woodland and fields. There’s an optional detour to a small stream if you enjoy a paddle.

Length: approximately 2.6 miles/4.2 km
Terrain: Undulating route so be prepared for some slopes – one of which is a long, moderate ascent. Ground conditions are generally good all year round because the underlying soil supporting the heath drains well but there are some muddier bits in the grassy fields and at the bottom of the hill.
Stiles/kissing gates? No stiles, one kissing gate

Walk to the far end of Church Lane, passing a row of terraced houses with green doors on your left, to where the lane ends at a footpath. Continue straight ahead on the footpath and follow it round to the right into the sunken lane/holloway that is Warren Lane. You’ll see the bank on the left is particularly tall and steep with large trees overhanging and some impressive roots on display. This is the most dramatic end of the holloway.

Follow this lovely bridleway (although I doubt you’ll ever encounter horses on it) as it goes upslope and narrows. You’ll pass a small clearing with gates into fields on either side and then you get to a fork with a marker post in the middle. Bear right and take this little path that runs alongside a wire fence to the junction with a lovely wide, sandy bridleway. Turn right. Follow the bridleway to the next signpost and turn left.

Take this path down to – and then through – a gate and continue straight ahead through the field down to the railway line. Take care to ensure there are no trains coming in either direction and then cross over.

On the other side of the railway line, follow the path ahead to – and then through – a little avenue of Hazel trees. Go through the gate and follow the track around to the left, alongside an old white house (Ford Farm), passing through an always-open vehicle gate.

Now you decide if you want to take a little detour (of about half a mile in total) out and back to a small stream for a paddle. If you want to, just continue reading. To not bother with it, click here.

NO STREAM DETOUR

Continue straight ahead on the track, passing the black wood-clad building and then a large pond (behind a sparse hedge). The track becomes ever-more lane-like because, well, it is actually Sandy Lane so watch out for the odd car (I have only encountered a postman one time). If you were to follow the lane all the way to its end, you’d arrive at Albury sports club and car park.

Follow Sandy Lane up slope and under the railway bridge. Shortly after the bridge, look out for a cross paths – it can be hard to see when there’s a lot of leaf cover on the ground. Take the path up on the left, up the bank out of the lane. It’s narrow and steep but mercifully quite short.

Almost immediately, there’s a tiny path off to the left behind what looks to be a coppiced tree (but I don’t know much about trees, maybe it’s just several small trunks sprouting out of the same place?) Ignore this and go a few steps further to where the path forks. Go left here instead and duck under a couple of tree branches that are growing diagonally. It’s still a small path but slightly better than the first one.

Wind your way along the edge of the woods with fields and the railway line over to your left. Stay on this ‘main’ path (although it’s still narrow!) and ignore any that go off up the hill to the right. Follow it all the way down to what at first appears to be a dead end at a fence, but just before you get there, you’ll see a little narrow path to the left with bushes either side that takes you between two fields. It’ll start to go uphill and suddenly widen out. Ignore a path that goes off to the left and continue straight ahead up the slope through the conifers. It is long and moderately steep but a lovely path.

Ignore paths left and right and just keep heading straight. The vegetation becomes scrubbier and then you’ll have a choice of two small paths – they both go to the same bridleway but for the purposes of these directions, keep left on the little path that goes over a couple of tree roots. When you emerge at the bridleway, turn right and walk along until you see a marker post on the left with a couple of green arrows. Turn left at this post and you’re now at the top of Warren Lane holloway.

Follow the holloway down the slope and round to the left at the bottom, then continue straight ahead onto Church Lane and you’re done!