The Surrey Border Path was always a challenge, but next week I am setting off, walking all around Surrey’s border, to forge a new route and to support the work of the Stroke Association.
The route is planned, the overnight accommodation is booked. The stages will be long, but over a series of weekends, I will go all around the county, checking that it is stil there. A county three hundred years older than England itself must have a fine solidity, whatever has been done to its fields by generations of rapacious builders.
I start by The Globe in Southwark on Saturday morning (5 September 2026), down the Thames a short way to the Surrey Docks, then south through the suburbs along the edge of Kent – the historic counties are what count here and not Whitehall inventions. Two days’ walking should bring me to the south-eastern corner of the county, where Surrey, Kent and Sussex meet, to turn west.
Don’t worry about wishing me luck: just donate.