Trail running at Box Hill: the route, the climb and the train

Box Hill is the answer to a question a lot of London runners have: where can I get on real trails without owning a car or giving up the whole day?

It sits on the North Downs above Dorking, it is a National Trust site, and it has the two things London parks cannot give you. Sustained climbing, and chalk and woodland underfoot instead of tarmac and gravel.

Getting there without a car

Box Hill and Westhumble station is the one you want. Direct trains from London Waterloo take somewhere around fifty minutes, and the station sits at the bottom of the hill, so you are running within a few minutes of stepping off the platform. Dorking is the alternative and is also walkable to the start.

That is the whole appeal. No M25, no parking, no 6am alarm. If you do drive, Rykas Cafe at the bottom is the usual meeting point and there is National Trust parking at the top.

What the ground is like underfoot

People assume Box Hill is one hill you go up and come down. It is a good deal more varied than that.

• •Chalk paths on the open slopes, which are fast and grippy when dry and genuinely slippery when wet. This is the main thing to know.
• •Woodland singletrack through the box and yew, softer underfoot, with roots and steps
• •Steps up from the Stepping Stones, which are the standard steep way onto the hill from the river
• •The ridge along the top, rolling rather than flat, with the North Downs opening out to the south

A loop of seven to ten kilometres will give you a few hundred metres of climbing without much effort to plan it. That is a serious session by London standards and it takes about as long as a lap of Regent's Park plus the faff of getting to Regent's Park.

The climbs

There are two obvious ways up. The steps from the Stepping Stones by the river are the direct version: short, steep, and unpleasant in the best way. The Zig Zag Road is the long way, a tarmac climb made famous by the 2012 Olympic road race, and it is better known to cyclists than runners.

For running, take the steps up and the trails down. Descending the chalk is where the skill is, and it is the part most road runners have never practised.

“Wet chalk is the most slippery surface in the south of England. Plan your route around it rather than finding out on the descent.”

When to go

• •Autumn and winter for the views, because the trees are bare and the North Downs open right up
• •Late spring for the box woodland, which is one of the few places in Britain it grows wild
• •Avoid a hot Sunday afternoon in August unless you enjoy queueing behind people with picnic blankets
• •After heavy rain, stick to the woodland and the ridge and stay off the open chalk

What to wear on your feet

Road shoes are survivable in summer and a bad idea otherwise. Anything with a moderate trail outsole is enough; you do not need aggressive fell shoes. The chalk is the reason. It packs into deep lugs and then you are running on stilts, so a shallower, closer-spaced tread is often better here than a proper mud shoe.

Afterwards

The Stepping Stones by the station is the obvious stop, and it has a fire going in winter. There is also a National Trust cafe at the top of the hill if you would rather refuel before you descend.

We run Box Hill as a free group run a few times a year, train from Waterloo, social pace, pub at the end. It is one of the easiest ways to find out whether you like trail running before you spend anything on it.

If you want the wider picture on getting started off-road, read: trail running for adventure