KINGLEY VALE WALK

Cheers to her Majesty for doing such a grand job over the past 70 years and for allowing us plebs to have an extra day off work.  God save the Queen!

 

God Save The Queen 

If you’re not into all that royal malarkey then a walk on the wild side may be just what the doctor ordered. There’s only so much Union Jack bunting or trooping of colour you can take before your brain is reduced to a porridge-like mush.  Kingley Vale in the South Downs National Park is wild enough to prevent this from happening.

 

Kingley Vale circular walk

There’s a circular walk of several miles we did a few weeks back that begins from a small car park at West Stoke.  Due to the popularity of this trail, you need to get to the car park before 9 am to be sure of finding a parking space. 

Remember to turn left and walk clockwise

We’re fairly hardy walkers but there are parts of this trail that were definitely not for the faint hearted and should not be attempted by anyone who isn’t relatively fit or is unsteady on their feet.  We’ll come to the reason why later on. 

Starting at the West Stoke car park there is a good wide and flat track bordered by lush fields that leads almost to the edge of the ancient Yew Forest for which Kingley Vale is famous. 

 

Lush green fields 

Nice flat path leading out from the car park

So peaceful early in the morning

Entering the Yew tree grove, I was instantly transported to the Forest of Fangorn that most magical woodland featured in the epic Tolkien tale ‘Lord of The Rings’. 

Entering the 'Forest of Fangorn'

'I almost felt I liked the place' - The Lord of The Rings

Are these really yew trees or Ents?  

They might reach out and grab you

Ancient yew trees all gnarly and twisty

Hundreds of years old

And still standing after all that time

The yew kraken awakes!

That one over there definitely looks like a Treebeard to me.

 

“The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.” - Treebeard from The Lord of The Rings

You could easily spend hours wandering under the canopy admiring all the grotesquely twisted tree limbs, chasing stray sunlight filtering through the dense foliage whilst breathing in that lovely earthy smell of damp, decaying wood.  There certainly is a strange magic about this place.

 

Weird woody magic

Leaving the yew tree grove, the trail eventually begins a steady ascent opening outwards into a wide expanse of green hilly terrain and this is where you begin to realise that you’re not as young as you once were and that you should maybe stop snaffling Pringles whilst watching telly.

 

Steady uphill climb

Are we nearly there yet?

Not another person in sight

Eventually you reach a very steep staircase set into the hillside and it’s at this point when it dawns on you that you should have turned left before entering the forest.  

We should have turned left

Anyone with an ounce of sense would have turned away now but not us, we huffed and we puffed like that big bad wolf all the way to the top.  There’s a lot of stairs and this is the reason why you need to be fairly fit to do this part of the walk.

 

Climbing the staircase is very hard work but worth the views

From the top of the staircase, you can see for miles in every direction and it’s not long before your eyes are drawn to a couple of green boob shaped mounds rising from the grass known as The Devil’s Humps. 

 

You can see for miles

View from the top of the staircase

The Devil's Humps

There’s a lot of folklore surrounding these ‘Humps’ which according to local legend are supposed to be the graves of Viking kings defeated by the brave men of Chichester, warrior kings that allegedly haunt the woods at night.  Creepy!  But here in the bright sunlight these burial mounds are about as ghostly as a green jelly although believe me, jellies can be quite scary with all that ghoulish wibble, wobble going on.

 

It's all downhill from here

The walk is downhill from now onwards but the track is flinty, rutted and uneven so a good pair of walking shoes/boots is recommended unless you want to end up with a badly twisted ankle.

 

Fields and wild flowers

In almost a blink of an eye, you’re back at the car park and all that nasty hilly climb stuff is long forgotten though a twinge or two in the old knees might serve as a reminder later on.  Well worth a day out.

Lots of wild thistles everywhere

Nature finds a way