Friday Street, Leith Hill and Wotton Common

Only a few minutes from the car park at the start of the walk is Friday Street lake, nestling in a circle of tree-clad hills. Until late Tudor times, this now peaceful valley resounded with the clamour of an iron foundry, its hammers powered by water from the lake and its furnaces fed by charcoal from the surrounding forest. By the 17th century it had acquired its present tranquil aspect, and the diarist John Evelyn (whose family owned nearby Wotton Manor) fished in its clear depths. A passionate lover of trees, he wrote Sylva, the influential book on arboriculture, in 1664 and began planting unusual species in the woods near his family home.

Entering the woodland, the path runs beside the little stream that feeds the lake through a mixture of beech and pine, with some oaks and mountain ash. Graduating upwards, the path emerges at the top of Leith Hill where the panorama of the Weald opens out. At 967 feet (290 metres), this is the highest point in south-east England, affording views of the sea through the Shoreham Gap to the south and of St Paul's Cathedral through the Mole Valley gap to the north. The 65-foot (20-metre) tower (originally named Prospect Place) was built by Richard Hull in 1766.

When the tower is open, visitors can climb to the top, bringing the elevation above 1,000 feet (300 metres) — the minimum height at which a hill becomes a mountain. Viewpoint indicators on the tower are presented in memory of the famous rambler 'Walker Miles', a founder of rambling clubs. Leaving the tower, the walk crosses heathland and follows a woodland track gently downhill to Broadmoor, before a short uphill climb and final descent through Severells Copse back to Friday Street.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.