Happy Valley
Posted on Tuesday 10 April 2007 by Mark Dawson
27 people met up at Mitcham Junction for the Bank Holiday Monday joint ride with Central London CTC. This bought back memories of our first Bank Holiday ride where 23 of us descended on a country pub and flipped the manager into Basil Fawlty mode, refusing to serve meals to half the group. I hadn’t told the Harrow at Caterham we were coming - best to get there early then!!We set off along the Wandle Trail to Carshalton Ponds and then meandered through various parks to the Telegraph Track and the Little Woodcote market gardens on our way to the Woodcote Green garden centre for morning coffees.
After a gentle climb, we arrived at the Woodcote village green on the William Webb estate and stopped by the stocks whilst I did my best to recount the story of how the village was built. Then we cruised down Silver Lane, past some of the most exclusive houses in the London area. It’s tricky to know where to cross the A23 so we opted to brave the gyratory at Purley before climbing up and over the railway and along the quiet roads and lanes that run parallel to the A22. Portley Wood road is a twisty steep climb to the top of the valley. It’s also a private road which means hardly any traffic uses it. The view at the top whilst you catch your breath is well worth it.
We managed to get to the pub about 12:40 and just before it got busy. Most of us got our food fairly quickly although a few got stuck in the inevitable backlog. But no problem, that just means a longer rest in the beer garden whilst soaking up the sun.
After a fair bit of hill climbing, the idea for the return was to use the cycle lanes of the A23 to shoot us back to the Wandle Trail.
However, the Waddon branch is closed at the moment so I had to put one more hill climb in. But not before the great descent off Farthing Downs and the views of Happy Valley. You’d never believe you were just outside Croydon.
The additional climb was a tough one - up to Clock House. Then we used the Hatch Lane bridleway to Woodmansterne and down the hill to Oaks Park for ice cream. Suitably refreshed, it was back onto the Telegraph Track between the black weatherboarded smallholdings and downhill all the way to Carshalton and back to the station.
28 miles, out for 7.5hrs. See the pix on Flickr.