About Us

The Author

The author of this website, Brian Akehurst, has been a resident of East Grinstead for over 30 years. During this time he has become familiar with the High Weald and created many local walks for sharing with his family and friends. The most engaging have always been those that include an encounter with the Bluebell Railway and this series of walks was written so that all can enjoy the same experience.

The Walks

View over High Weald Landscape from Highbrook

The Bluebell Railway runs through the High Weald National Landscape. This alone makes for enjoyable walking but the sight, sound and smell of steam trains adds a completely new dimension.

The deeply undulating nature of the landscape, its history and the density of historic properties (often hidden away) means there is always something around the next corner and the walks are frequently punctuated with surprise views.

The walks include many routeways, tracks, lanes, public footpaths, bridlepaths and roads but road walking has been kept to a minimum (except for the East Grinstead walk where roads are a key feature).

There are plenty of photo opportunities along the way so don’t forget your camera. Each page on the website shows what you might see and hovering your mouse over a photo will reveal a short description.

There is nothing worse than just missing a train as you approach one of the view points and so an estimate of when trains will arrive at each view point is provided to help you plan your walk. The times are based on the departure of each train published by the Bluebell Railway.

Of course the timetable relies on the steam trains leaving on schedule and it is recommended that you wait for 10 minutes or so after the published times, just in case.

Bluebell Railway at Birch Farm Foot Crossing