The best dog-friendly hikes and walks around Wotton

We walked past here in September 2025 but sadly the waterfall was totally dry and not running even tho it had been a very rainy week. A lot of the vegetation around it has also been cut.

If one were to categorize the more or less numerous small sacred monuments that hikers repeatedly encounter along the way according to their purpose, i.e., the reason for their erection, this stone monument is a classic memorial cross. It was erected here to commemorate a person murdered at this spot—in this case, a person of higher clerical rank, namely Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.

Lovely pond by the mill in Abinger.

Fast trail to or from Peaslake

On 19 July 1873 Samuel Wilberforce, ‘Soapy Sam’ the Bishop of Winchester, had a tragic accident on the Abinger Roughs. His family erected a granite memorial on the spot where he fell, and you can see this Grade II listed monument near Leasers Barn. The Roughs was formerly part of the Abinger Hall Estate. In the late 19th century the land was planted with specimen trees, plantations and rhododendrons to form open glades with interlinking paths; a wilderness garden. It was created by Thomas Henry Farrer of Abinger Hall, and you can still see some of the original garden today.

The first name John has been widespread since biblical times, and so it should not surprise us to find a whole series of blessed and saints with this name over the two millennia of Christianity. At the threshold from the Old to the New Testament we encounter John the Baptist (also John Baptist), to whom most of the churches dedicated to John are dedicated. But one of the four men who wrote the New Testament Gospels also bears this name. This church in Wotton is dedicated to him, JOHN THE EVANGELIST. A long church tradition has regarded the evangelist as identical with the apostle John mentioned in the Bible, but this is doubted in biblical scholarship. "The Gospel of John exerts a peculiar fascination. It is difficult to escape its solemn, sometimes mystical language. It addresses deep human needs and longings: hunger and thirst, the search for fulfilling eternal life, the longing for personal communion with God.” (Franz-Josef Ortkemper)

James the Elder (the Latin word 'major' is not translated as 'great' in German), to whom this church in Abinger was dedicated, belongs together with his brother to the closest circle of Jesus' disciples. In his version of the "Good News" (this is the meaning of the word "gospel"), the evangelist Mark lists the apostles: "James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James - to whom he gave the nickname Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). They are said to have been very temperamental, but were loyal followers of Jesus Christ, in whom they recognized the promised Messiah. According to the Acts of the Apostles, James was executed for his faith. His grave in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia (Spain) is one of the most famous and important pilgrimage destinations in the world.

Nestled beneath the North Downs escarpment and just a short stroll from the pretty village of Abinger Hammer, Abinger Roughs' woodland is a delight to explore. Top billing goes to the Witch's Broom Tree, a beech tree that's thought to be between 200 and 300 years old. Its huge, gnarled form is an astonishing sight and it's not known exactly how it has assumed its current, conspicuous state.