For my first ride this spring, I went to the Devil's Punch Bowl near Hindhead. The A3 used to sweep around the Punch Bowl. Recently, in an enlightened civil engineering project, the A3 has been diverted under the hill in a tunnel, restoring the Punch Bowl to a tranquillity unknown in living memory, and relieving motorists from the frustrations of traffic jams at the Hindhead traffic lights. Courtesy of the National Trust, the old A3 carriageway has been buried to make a terrace and excellent views have been opened up by clearance of trees and scrub: I am all for trees, but in much of Surrey I think they have been allowed to get out of hand, blocking previously open views from the North Downs ridge and tops of the Surrey Hills.
Following a coffee in the inviting NT cafe (car parking free for NT members), I made a circuit of the Punch Bowl anticlockwise - see route
here. There are two possible tracks: the upper one is a good metalled lane exiting from the car park, the lower is the aforementioned terrace, which has a reasonable hard-packed earth surface. The upper path passes close by Gibbet Hill, from which, on a clear day, there are views north to the North Downs and beyond. The two routes converge, then you can take a track immediately down into the Punch Bowl, or carry on as I did on the metalled road on the route of the old A3, to the lower car park on Punchbowl Lane. (This car park is adjacent to the busy A3, but is not accessible directly from it.)
From here, I took farm tracks and access lanes west to join the other arm of the Punch Bowl horse shoe, then climbed on a track, rough at first, to emerge on firmer ground and once again affording open views, at the Robertston monument in Highcomb Copse. This commemorates the bequest by W A Robertson, made in memory of his two brothers killed in the Great War, which allowed the Trust to purchase the Copse (and several other plots in Surrey). Thank you, W A Robertson.
From here there is a good track back to the cafe. An excellent short circuit.
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| Viewpoint near the NT Hindhead cafe |
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| Upper metalled track and lower track, the latter being the now buried old A3 carriageway |
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| At Gibbet Hill |
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| Upper and lower tracks again |
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| Down in the Punch Bowl |
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| W A Roberston memorial |
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| View from W A Roberston memorial |
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