Published 29 June 2010. Last updated 22 May 2012
South Downs Way
Length: 99 miles, 160km
Time required: 8 days
Region: South East England
Start: Winchester, Hampshire
End: Eastbourne, East Sussex
Difficulty: Easy
What with all the excitement of actually finishing the South Downs Way, I never got round to pulling together a post about organising a trip walking on it.
I say walking on it - actually the South Downs Way was the first National Bridleway and as such is perfectly suited for cyclists and horse riders as well.
The fact it's a bridleway has certain benefits too in that the paths are generally wide and there's no styles, just gates. It's also doesn't feature much mud which is wonderful in itself.
The South Downs Way is also not particularly hard going - there's not huge amounts of ups and downs to contend with. Most days include walking up to a ridge and then enjoying the relatively flat walk for a few hours whilst you enjoy the view. That's not to say there's not some challenges - the final stretch along the Seven Sisters is pretty hard work because it breaks that rule. However in the main, it's pretty simple walking. But simple walking with a huge reward.
The first thing when planning the walk is to work out how much you're going to do every day, and whether you're going to do it in stages or all in one.
As the South Downs Way has good transport links with lots of railway stations with direct services to London, it's an easy one to split in to sections and can be easily done in four stages of two day walks. This means you could do the South Downs Way in just four weekends.
It is, of course, possible to do the whole route in one go, and to do so you need about eight days although if you're prepared for some longer days, it should be possible to do it in six or seven instead.
Another key decision is whether you're going to go East to West or West to East. Most guidebooks and signs suggest that the South Downs Way starts at Eastbourne and goes to Winchester but frankly I think that's the wrong way round. Why start at the sea and end at a cathedral in a city? It just seems bonkers. Far better to start in a city and end marching along the cliffs of the south coast.
With that preference in mind I've written the itinerary guide below to run West to East but obviously if you'd rather go away from the coast just read it upside down!
As there are a lot of villages en-route there's plenty of ways to cut up your walking however if you want to do roughly similar distances on each day, we think the following eight day itinerary makes the most sense. At the end of each day you'll find a accommodation and a pub, and in some places (marked with a *) there is a railway station too.
If you'd like to concoct your own itinerary the official South Downs Way website has a detailed mileage chart to download.
| 8 Day Itinerary | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day | From | To | Distance | Notes | |
| Miles | Km | ||||
| 1 | Winchester * | Exton | 12 | 19½ | [1] |
| 2 | Exton | Buriton * | 12½ | 20 | [2] |
| 3 | Buriton * | Cocking | 11 | 18 | |
| 4 | Cocking | Amberley * | 12 | 19 | |
| 5 | Amberley * | Upper Beeding | 12¾ | 19½ | |
| 6 | Upper Beeding | Housedean Farm/A27 * | 15½ | 24¾ | [3] |
| 7 | Housedean Farm/A27 * | Alfriston | 12¾ | 22 | |
| 8 | Alfriston | Eastbourne * | 10½ | 17 | [4] |
There's a reasonable amount of accommodation in the South Downs area, although mostly small B&Bs. As it's also a popular destination to visit and for weddings at weekends, booking really is advised. Even walking in the early part of Spring I found a few places were booked up. Don’t be too worried about staying a few miles off trail if you have to as many B&Bs which are a bit further away offer free pickup and drop off from the trail.
Finding out where the B&Bs are is often a nightmare - just typing in a search term in Google does sometimes give you results, however an excellent place to check out is the National Trail website's South Downs Way Accommodation Guide.
This is an excellent resource which includes a map so you can see roughly how far places are from the Way. It also gives you some results you just won't get in Google like The Copper Room in Corhampton where I stayed and is one of a number of B&Bs which only accept walkers as customers.
It's fair to say that accommodation in the South Downs can be pricey - one B&B cost me £55 for a night based on single occupancy - although it was a lovely room and the best breakfast I had - but if you're after something a bit cheaper, you may want to check out the youth hostels.
The YHA has locations at Truleigh Hill (a short way beyond Upper Beeding), Alfriston and Telscombe which are not far from the Way.
Another YHA hostel was due to open in Summer 2010 at Southease, but at the time of editing (October 2011) it had yet to open.
Running as it does across the South of England, the South Downs Way is extremely well served by public transport. There are a plethora of railway stations en-route, including at each end.
There are stations at Winchester, Petersfield (a few miles off route from Buriton), Amberley, Lewes (a short distance from Housedean Farm), Southease and Eastbourne. With the exception of Southease, each station has regular and frequent direct rail links to either London Waterloo or London Victoria.
More information on train services can be found on the National Rail Enquiries website.
The South Downs Way is extremely well way marked and amazingly easy to follow. With the exception of Winchester where the way marking is terrible, you could almost do the whole thing without looking at a map. However I'd advise taking something with you, just in case! There were processional points where I thought I'd got lost (although hadn't) so having something to refer to is useful.
Without doubt, the best guide book is the official South Downs Way National Trails Guide by Paul Millmore. This official guide to the trail is published, along with guides for all the other National Trails and some other long distance walks, by Aurum Press.
It includes OS Maps for the whole route and is well written and includes lots of historical and landmark information. It has just one flaw and that's that it assumes you start at Eastbourne and end at Winchester.
If you've got the official guide book then you don't really need a map, however if you don't want to take a guide book or just want the extra security of having a map then Harvey's South Downs Way Map covers the whole route.
One of the lovely things about walking in Britain is that you can usually find a pub in the evening to eat and refresh yourself. The South Downs Way goes one step further and on many days you could pop to a pub or café for lunch too! There's almost always somewhere to buy sandwiches too.
I was also very well treated in the evenings - the four pubs I dinned in on my trip were all excellent - The Shoe at Exton, in particular, was amazing.
Not knowing what to expect when he joined me on the final two days, Jacko had brought some water purification tablets to allow him to take water from streams and ponds. However most of the route is also well catered for with water taps as well. The guide book marks these out with a handy red tap icon, and the taps can be enormously helpful on warm days. Needless to say the water purification tablets remained unused.
Because you have to end a post somewhere and somehow, here's the and finally… To be honest I couldn't think of much else to say other than to say the South Downs Way is a lovely walk with lovely scenery and views. It can be a bit windy, but it's a lovely walk - not hugely taxing but very very rewarding.
If you live in the South of England and haven't been to the South Downs, you don't know what you're missing. And if you don't live in the South and haven't heard of the South Downs, well you don't know what you're missing.
It may not have the mythology of the Pennine Way; it may not have the fame of the Coast to Coast. In fact it's all a bit of a hidden gem. The fact is that the South Downs is a wonderful part of the country. Standing on that ridge looking out at the Isle of Wight and the Channel, well it made me feel good to be alive. So go on, get out there. Put your hiking boots on, book your accommodation and get walking!
Oh and don't forget your free certificate when you complete it!
If you've any questions feel free to ask them in the comments box below.
Your Comments
J9
Posted on 19 August 2010 at 4:15 PM
Have totally loved reading about your trip - I am starting the walk 6th Sept!
Am interested to know where you plan to walk next? You plan to do 4 long distance walks - is a that correct. Which other walks interest you?
Andrew Bowden
Posted on 19 August 2010 at 4:27 PM
Funny you should ask! I recently finished doing Wainwright's Coast to Coast walk and I've written about it - the first batch of posts will be published over the next two weeks.
Soon I'll be doing the Dales Way as well and at the end of it, finally finishing off the Pennine Way after we were snowed in near the end earlier in the year.
What happens next is a good question, however if I can get the time I'm quite tempted to try the Southern Upland Way in Scotland. Maybe camping it too! We'll see. Much depends if I get redeployment at work when my job moves to Salford, or whether I get made redundant!
J9
Posted on 19 August 2010 at 5:06 PM
Yeh - first time I have written on a blog - or what ever you call these conversations and I get a reply! Heh so this is modern technology!
Came by your writing by chance, loved it, makes me want to go home, get my get my rucksack on and start walking.........might get a few odd looks in the supermarket though....
Will look forward to reading the Wainwrights Coast to Coast posts - assuming I can find this site again!! Hopefully doing the walk next year, Did the Ridgeway last year - easy walk but still had the wow factor! But then don't they all!!!
Good luck with the job!
joanna
Posted on 12 January 2012 at 7:23 PM
Firstly, thank you so much for this info - for us novices it's great to get the 'real' story! We are a middle aged couple of friends who want to walk the SDW in March or April and have absolutely NO IDEA on how to go about it - is there anybody in the same situation as us and we could all link up?
Clare and Simon
Posted on 29 January 2012 at 8:26 PM
We are complete novices too and are planning walking SDW in March/April 2012. Check out our blog spot at saawfeet.blogspot.com. We are walking in aid of The Anaphylaxis Campaign - more detail on blog. Have a look and get in touch if you want to hook up.
Bill
Posted on 31 March 2012 at 5:55 PM
Good Work! If you can think of other must stay B&Bs, please email me. We want to walk it in 6 days, as we like 30+ kms/day, but we also want to book ourselves and find the best food/bed combination -- have gone with Contours in the past but they have been up and down in terms of quality.
Cheers!
Mike
Posted on 3 April 2012 at 2:10 PM
I really enjoyed reading the story of your trip, and some excellent advice too! Having the good fortune of living in Eastbourne, I have to agree that the downs are a real treasure.
Can't help mentioning that I was just thinking how good you must be at navigating, until I read this on your planning a trip page: 'Standing on that ridge looking out at the Isle of Man...' Either you've got some truly excellent binoculars or your were spectacularly lost :-)
Anyway, continue to enjoy the walking!
Andrew Bowden (Editor)
Posted on 3 April 2012 at 2:24 PM
Whoops! All these years and no one has spotted that. My geography clearly was not in a good state when I wrote this page!
You'll be glad to know that I've now amended it. It is, of course, the Isle of Jersey we're talking about...
Oh hang on...
Kate
Posted on 6 April 2012 at 3:29 PM
Hello! I just wanted to write in and say thank you. I was at a loose end, with Easter looming, until I read this! Now I'm booked into a couple of B&B's, starting tomorrow, doing Lewes - Eastbourne. Never attempted something like this, but your blog was so inspiring, I couldn't resist giving it a go. Cheers!
Andrew Bowden (Editor)
Posted on 8 April 2012 at 8:03 AM
I hope you enjoyed it! Lewes to Eastbourne is, without doubt, my favourite section of the South Downs Way. Some fantastic ridge walking following by a triumphant traverse over the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head. Fantastic!
Makes me feel very dull for having spent Easter weekend decorating my living room. Still, the new bookshelves look great in the alcove...
Rosanne
Posted on 7 May 2012 at 2:27 PM
Just at the very early planning stages of hopefully completing the whole of the South Downs Way next year to raise money for two charities. Finding your site very helpful, what would you say is the minimum amount of days it could be done in? I've previously done 18 mile days of South West Coast Path with some huge ups and downs (Golden Cap for instance), so happy to do lots in one day!
Andrew Bowden (Editor)
Posted on 7 May 2012 at 10:57 PM
Hi Rosanne. The walking on the South Downs Way is pretty easy - far easier than much of the South West Coast Path is (well from what little I've done of it anyway.) I'm not the fastest walker in the world, nor was I trying to go quickly, but I was doing 2.5-3 miles an hour for most of it. 18 mile days on that one are more than do-able.
If you can find accommodation, then doing it in five days is certainly possible. Six is certainly achievable.
Rosanne
Posted on 13 May 2012 at 10:37 PM
Thank you. We were hoping to manage it in 4 days! Campsites not that evenly spaced it seems and current planning leaves us with 28 miles to do on day 4, not ideal!