Ah, below St Catherine's Hill, near the Pilgrim's Well, where, long ago, I got the juiciest view of my life. Rowing boats, which pass the spot, can still be hired.

Where is this Pilgrim's Well of which you speak?

A hundred yards or so North of this spot, a narrow lane (Ferry Lane) leads off the towpath. The Well (said to be on the Pilgrim's Way) is at the spot where the towpath and lane meet. From there, a narrow path climbs through the wood and leads up to St Catherine's Chapel. I remember being enchanted by it as a child.

It's otherwise known as Artington Spring Holy Well.

I used to go there in 1967, but have no recollection of the well.
I recall being enchanted by the rumble of the diesels coming out of the tunnel.

www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10735

That's the very place. But it's a spring rather than a well. Memory playing tricks again; sorry. You must have passed and seen it.

The trees are only that pale and luminescent green in May, which is when I often went to Guildford, stopping en route at the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park.

Oh yes, I'm bound to have passed it in 1967, but probably didn't realise its significance.
On this occasion, I came down the sand and not down the lane.



I've just found it on Street View. You can now walk the little orange man all along the Pilgrim's Way to St Martha's and then on to Newlands Corner, but it doesn't look too enchanting on a grey day.

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I wish I wa-a-s in the land of cotton
Cinnamon balls and sandy bottom
To the land, to the land...
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