West London Branch Ouse Under the Viaduct

On an overcast Sunday morning a group from the West London HOC (HOWL) branch met at Pease Pottage service station located just south of Crawley in West Sussex to cast an eye on the delights of Dan`s Perry Hill Orchards cider run. A little nervous Daniel Walton awaited the arrival of his HOWL branch mates at the service station this was his first ride out that he had planned from conception to execution. The nerves dwindled as the familiar faces of his HOWL family were revealed from underneath their bike helmets, it was a great turn out.

On our route led by dan the first stop and point of interest was the Ouse Valley Viaduct to the south of a little village called Balcombe the viaduct carries the London to Brighton main train line and the build completed in 1838 and consists of a small 11 million bricks and spans nearly half a kilometre but the best thing is to go and look through the centre of the arches…

Once play time was over, we headed to our next stop which was The Blue Bell Railway at the Horsted Keynes station this is a fully steam only train line and was used in the filming of The Darling Buds of May series whilst there we were treated to the visual delight of an old-style station with the staff dressed to match… as we were only stopping for refreshments the very kind gentleman in the photograph below waved the platform only ticket fee which would have been £5 each…

Then from there we headed of through Ashdown Forest with a loop around Crowborough and back underneath Royal Tunbridge wells with some complex back roads and single carriage lanes the run finished at Perry Hill Orchards for a well-deserved bite to eat…

The warm nature of the staff and great food, even better cider make this a must for a fuel stop of the human kind… they even state on their website, on signage in the café that all bikers are welcome and we definitely felt exactly that.

Those in attendance were Daniel Walton, Jude Browne, Jon Stone, Charles Deakin, Tom Deakin, Tony Surridge, Bill Turner, Stephen Hill.

BY DANIEL WALTON