Way back in January I walked the A2025 in Worthing.
So before the year ends, let's walk the B2025.
It's in Limpsfield, Surrey, and it's almost half a mile long.
If you live on it, you're doing really well.
Limpsfield is a village at the foot of the North Downs, very close to Oxted and just outside the M25. It's so close to Oxted that if you walk down the Mock Tudor high street as far as Oxted library you've already entered Limpsfield parish.
As well as the motorway Limpsfield has three classified roads. One's the A25, a key orbital route south of London. Another's the B269, a 15 miler linking South Croydon to the Kent countryside. And finally there's the B2025, a brief climb that only got its own number because it happened to cut a corner between the A25 and B269. Limpsfield locals know it as Detillens Lane, having been named after the timber-framed medieval house at the top of the road. It's also a right pain to turn out of.
The foot of the road is very wide and marked by three roadside stalwarts - a fingerpost, a drinking fountain and a water trough. One of these made the BBC News in April.
The fingerpost is an old one with a hooped top and gives distances to three places in each of three directions. Along the A25 it's Godstone Redhill London in one direction and Westerham Sevenoaks Maidstone in the other. Along the B2025 it's the more intriguing trio of Limpsfield Titsey Tatsfield. Alas the fingerpost doesn't specifically mention the number of the B road, indeed there's not a single mention of the B2025 on any road sign anywhere (but if you continue north to the top of Titsey Hill you'll find the B2024 I walked last year).
The drinking fountain was donated in 1913 by Alice and Horace Barry, the owners of nearby Home Place, and refurbished in 1999 to mark the millennium. They also donated the drinkingtrough which once stood in front, a classic from the Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association with the additional inscription 'Do Well Unto Thy Servant'. But the gleaming stone trough that currently graces the street corner isn't the original, indeed looks brazenly out of place, because the original was casually stolen last year by nefarious individuals who claimed to be "taking it away for cleaning".
Limspfield's residents were aghast and upset, chiefly because the trough held great historical and sentimental value, but also because it was probably stolen to order and "may now sit unrecognised and unappreciated in someone’s private garden". Despite video evidence the police were "unable to pursue further leads" so the parish council sighed and fundraised for a replacement, which is when BBC journalists stepped in with a news story. Thankfully the insurance company paid up and the Drinking Fountain Association sent a generous donation, thus five weeks ago a new trough was lowered into place and planted with heather, shrubs and pansies. It would be uncharitable to say it looks entirely unconvicing, more like a gleaming porcelain tub from a garden centre, but perhaps a century of weathering will rough it up a bit.
The rest of the B2025 is less interesting but still very pleasant. It's lined by large detached houses, some merely substantial and others large enough that if this were London they'd be divided into six flats. Some have whopping decorative chimneys, others patently anacronistic half-timbering, and several have a large pull-in driveway behind a beautfully trimmed holly hedge. All have names rather than numbers because that's classier. Head higher and some of the houses are merely big rather than pretty, being later infill, but the last six form a proper chocolate-box row of convincingly wonky cottages. I like that the bins here all say RUBBISH Tandridge Borough Council, because most local authorities don't dare to be as explicit as that.
Halfway up the hill a public footpath squeezes between two large gardens and breaks out into a rolling green valley, this a woody dip following the headwaters of the River Eden. This stream rises just over a mile away below Clacket Lane Services, eventually veers east to enter the River Medway and ends up gushing into the Thames at Chatham. The hilltop provides additional space for the area's premier rackets venue, The Limpsfield Club, which started out in 1899 with a few tennis courts and now has dozens, plus badminton, squash and more recently padel. This is the B2025's chief social nexus, an athletic hideaway a world away from some grubby chain gym and all the better for it.
In the hedge I found what looked like an old bus shelter, despite no routes coming this way, hence the board inside now displays the 2025 Limpsfield Biodiversity Planner. 50 years ago I could have caught a London Country RF to Westerham or Edenbridge on routes 464 and 465, but these days everybody drives. It's quite a tight turn at the top of the street where a mini-roundabout has been painted between the old stone walls to help minimise risk of collision. This is the junction with Limpsfield High Street, a historic lane where you turn left for the 12th century parish church or right for the village pub. I'd like to have investigated St Peter's and The Bull but they're on the B269, not the B2025, because this year's B road terminates here.
Next year's B road is much longer, of which more later in the week.
