Whyteleafe to Selsdon via Fairleigh
2025-09-04
Total Distance: 10km-ish
Difficulty: Medium (although easier if you do it the other way around)
Getting There: 407 bus from Croydon (which does leave from nearby Art & Craft and the Green Dragon.
We started our walk with a couple of beers at The Radius Arms - an excellent pub - then barrelled up the hill towards Hamsey Green Primary School. It was a bit of a steep climb - about 100m up - but the only big one of the day.
We made a bit of a mistake going this route as we had to climb a couple of fences to get through some kind of subdivision something-or-other. We did make it pretty quickly to Ales on the Green with relative ease (excluding the 7 foot fence).
So if anyone else ever takes this route, I'd suggest taking a right when you're at the top of the hill and go down Tithepit Shaw Lane and heading to Ales on the Green that way.
From there, we walked some bumpy back roads towards The Harrow. There was only about 10 minutes of walking down the main road here - which was acceptable.
Then, from the Harrow, we walked alongside the main road for another 10 minutes before peeling off on the right to go through Puplet Wood and Selsdon Wood. The last 30 minutes were pretty casual through some suburbs before finally ending at The Golden Ark.
Overall Comments
Was a nice and relatively easy walk. The pubs along the way broke up the walk nicely. I think the clear "winner" of all the pubs is the Radius Arms, so making that the end goal would make more sense. Doing it this way would save the 100m climb as well and quite drastically reduce the difficulty of the walk.
I'd probably do this walk again.