How to get from Esher to Downing Street? On this new one-day route, the walker starts from a church patronised by the Duke of Newcastle; then follows in the footsteps of Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister, plotting his way to Westminster and the eventual goal.
It is out of care for my home village that I present this new walking route: Esher to Downing Street. It begins at St George’s Church, then runs across towns and parks, shunning the everyday run of things and allowing one who has set his mind to the goal to reach it in a very pleasant and direct manner.
Why should any map want to make this journey? Well, it beats the daily commute that so many undertake, so I have reinvented that commute into London as an 18-mile adventure of the wild and the suburban. It is within the capabilities of most fit men, and for those unused to the determination it would take to get there, well, ambition is a fervent master.
How at the end you get into Downing Street, I leave to you.