St Martha's Hill, Shalford, Chilworth Manor and Albury

Looking back from Shalford Mill, you can see the copper spire of ST Mary's church in Shalford, a Victorian building on the site of a Domesday church, and the imposing outline of Guildford Cathedral. The village of Shalford itself is reputedly to be the model for 'Vanity Fair' in Chaucer's The Pilgrim's Progress.

Returning to the main route, the walk continues through undulating countryside to Halfpenny Lane. This derives its name from the time when tolls were levied on cattle drovers, using it as a shortcut over the hill to Guildford market.

A short way further on is a pill-box, one of the World War II fortifications erected in anticipation of a German invasion. These wartime structures were in turn, turned into peacetime roosts and hibernation sites for bats.

Chilworth Manor was a monastery in the 11th century, listed in the Domesday Book. Destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII, the building passed to the Duchess of Marlborough in 1725. Now privately owned, the house and grounds are open to the public on several days each year.

Just beyond the manor, on St Martha's Hill, Downs Link joins the North Downs Way with the South Downs Way. It runs for 30 miles to Steyning.

Passing the River Tillingbourne, a network of streams where a pretty plant, Orange Balsam grows, you come to Chilworth Gunpowder Mills. Dating back to 1580, the mills flourished until a serious explosion in 1901; thereafter they declined, and even the munition demands of World War One could not save them.

Winding south-eastwards, the route turns north up Blackheath Lane to Albury Church, built in the 19th century by a local landowner. It was intended to be a copy of a church in Thaon, Normandy. However, it was mistakenly built of red brick instead of stone.

The village of Albury is noted for its extravagant Tudor style chimneys, designed by Pugin in the early 19th century.

Heading northwards, the walk joins the Pilgrims Way, a route followed by medieval pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. This ancient route intersects with the more recently created North Downs Way, a 150 mile footpath from Farnham to Dover. It was opened in 1978 by Donald Coggan, then Archbishop of Canterbury.

The final stretch of the walk climbs to the top of St Martha's Hill and passes the 11th century St Martha's Church. The original chapel was damaged by a gunpowder explosion in 1763 and not rebuilt until 1850. There is the traditionally held belief that early Christians were martyred here around 600 AD by pagan Saxons. So the name Martha may be a corruption of martyr. In the churchyard is the grave of the French-born actress Yvonne Arnaud, who gave her name to Guildford's theatre, opened in 1965.