Timber Hill & Ottershaw Chase

• Free car park (height restriction 2.1m)
• Disabled parking bays
• Bins
• Woodlands walks
• Excellent information boards
• Clearly waymarked routes
• A choice of long or short routes, up to 3.5km, exploring Timber Hill, Ottershaw Chase & Ether Hill

Where you’ll find it…

The free car park is found on the A320, Guildford Road, Ottershaw, nearest postcode KT16 0PB. Grid reference TQ 02122 63453. What3Words: sketch.neck.save.

N.B. We’ve given the nearest postcode, but recommend using the links to look up the exact location. The centre of a postcode may be up to half a mile from your destination.

What you’ll find there…

The car park is at the entrance to Timber Hill, and Ottershaw Chase is just over the road, behind the church. You have a choice of routes from here, all clearly waymarked. There’s the 1.2km Timber Hill Loop, that takes you around the woodland, down through Chaworth Copse, popping out briefly onto Brox Road. Then there’s the shorter 0.8km circuit of Ottershaw Chase. Combine these two in a figure of eight, or stretch your legs further and take in Ether Hill, it’s easily reached from Cross Lane. These and other walks are described in a series of doorstep walks published by Runnymede Borough Council.

Excellent information boards display route choices and describe the woodlands and their history. Did you know, for example, that Timber Hill was once an allotment? Not the modern kind of allotment, where people grow vegetables, but an area set aside for the benefit of the poor, where local people could collect firewood. And another board describes how Ottershaw Chase’s splendid Sweet Chestnut trees had a close shave when they were sold to a timber merchant. Luckily for us, the merchant went bust and the trees were never felled!

The natural history of these woodlands is also fascinating, supporting all manner of birds from Nuthatch and Great-spotted Woodpecker, to the less common Firecrest.

If you’re looking for a longer walk, take a look at our ‘Linking Ottershaw’s Greenspaces’ route. The 8km walk uses public rights of way to link up Homewood Park, Hare Hill, Timber Hill, Ottershaw Chase and Ether Hill. It’s a great walk, but requires two busy road crossings, and a short section of road walking to link Fox Hills Road with Homewood Park. We’ve saved this and all other routes to OutdoorActive.

Gallery…

This ‘Greenspace on your doorstep’ is managed by…

Runnymede Borough Council