The Route
The walk starts from the National Trust car park and café at the top of the Punch Bowl, where the old A3 once carried traffic through Hindhead. Since the road was rerouted through a tunnel in 2011, the landscape has been transformed. The former dual carriageway has been ripped up and replanted, and the Punch Bowl is once again a continuous stretch of open heath and woodland.
From the car park, the path follows the rim of the bowl south and east, with views down into the steep-sided valley below. The descent into the bowl is on sandy paths through heather and gorse. At the bottom, streams converge and the vegetation shifts to birch and willow. The return climb takes the western side of the bowl, passing the Sailor's Stone – a memorial marking the spot where an unknown sailor was murdered in 1786.
What You'll See
The Punch Bowl is a spring-sapped valley, carved into the Upper Greensand over millennia by water seeping from the sandstone. The resulting amphitheatre is about a mile across and 100 metres deep. The heathland supports nightjars (arriving May, best heard at dusk), Dartford warblers, woodlarks, and stonechats. In summer, the heather turns the hillsides purple. Adders bask on the sandy paths in spring.
The views from the rim extend south towards the South Downs and east across the Surrey Hills. On a clear day, you can see Blackdown (the highest point in Sussex) to the south-west.
Getting There
The National Trust car park (GU26 6AB) is just off the A3 at Hindhead. Parking is free for NT members, pay-and-display for others. Haslemere station is about 2 miles south-west, connected by footpaths. The Punch Bowl Café at the car park serves food and drinks. Dogs are welcome but should be kept on leads during bird nesting season (March to July) on the heathland.
