Festival Guided Walks – new for 2019
Inspiring Views Walk – Friday 3 May, 11am
This free, guided walk followed a section of the Greensand Way in the beautiful Hurtwood in South West Surrey. The walk was led by Ali Clarke from Surrey Hills Arts who will lead us to two of the sculptural seating artworks from the ‘Inspiring Views’ project. In addition to specially created seating, ‘Inspiring Views’ included new sound pieces and poetry inspired by the view. www.inspiringviews.org
Perspectives
Contour
We saw ‘Perspectives’ by Giles Miller and ‘Contour’ by Russell Jakubowski and also heared the specially commissioned poetry and sound tracks at each piece. The walk was approx. 3.5 miles long on rough terrain but no steep hills.
Albury & Shere Walk – Friday 10 May 10.00am
We joined the Chairman and Vice-President of Surrey Hills Society, Gordon Jackson and Chris Howard on this 3.5 mile (5.6 km) circular walk from Shere with a guided tour of Albury Saxon Church and a short musical interlude.
We started in the delightful, quintessential English village of Shere with its charming buildings and stream with ducks. The walk led along the Tillingbourne River and through woodland to the beautiful Albury Park. Here we had a guided tour of the charming, ancient St Peter and St Paul’s Church dating from Saxon and Norman times. A flint-walled gem, this now redundant church is full of contrasts and surprises including a stunning medieval wall painting of St Christopher sporting a curly red beard, an odd but delightful eighteenth-century shingled cupola over the tower and the magnificent South Chapel – this was remodelled by renowned Victorian architect A.W. Pugin, responsible for the interior of the Palace of Westminster.
The tour included a short musical interlude, featuring local soprano, Kim Collins, together with tea, coffee and biscuits organised by the friends of the Old Saxon Church. We returned to Shere through rolling meadows followed by lunch afterwards at The White Horse, a 15th century farmhouse and Grade II Listed Building. One of Hollywood’s most romantic films ‘The Holiday,’ starring Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, was shot there. It is also rumoured to be a former smugglers’ pub after a secret cellar was discovered during extensive renovations.