Walking: Belligerent past fires the imagination: Michael Leapman enjoys the peace of a Surrey valley where a gunpowder industry flourished for centuries

UNLESS you actually enjoy trudging through the wet and the gloom, winter walks need careful selection, especially with the weather as dreadful and variable as it has been this year.

You need a starting point that is easy to get to, so you can seize your opportunity when the forecast seems favourable. You need a relatively short route, because night still falls quite early and it is rash to rely on a fine start holding up all day. And you need a surface that looks as though it will be reasonably dry and passable, even after weeks of rain.

On a rare bright Sunday between bouts of heavy showers, we looked through our 1987 edition of the Holiday Which? Good Walks Guide (Hodder & Stoughton) for a route near London that fulfilled those conditions, and one we had not tried before. Passing over those with the word 'muddy' in the description of the paths, we settled on a five-mile circuit from Chilworth, near Guildford in Surrey, that took us from the Tilling Bourne Valley up to St Martha's Church on the North Downs, then down again.

For about a mile on the top of the ridge the route follows the North Downs Way, which we walked from beginning to end a few summers ago. Apart from that, it was unfamiliar country for us - although clearly not for the large number of local people we saw walking their dogs and children all through the morning.

The book recommended parking by the phone box outside Chilworth station, but that did not seem a good idea: maybe the box has been moved since publication. Just opposite, the large car park of the Percy Arms was nearly empty at 10.50 in the morning and, as we intended to call in for lunch afterwards, we felt justified in taking up a space there.

Our target, the church on top of the hill, was easily visible from the pub car park. A narrow fenced path led from the road to a wooden footbridge over a stream in a wood, then followed the stream for about half a mile. It is the Tilling Bourne, on whose banks a gunpowder industry flourished for hundreds of years until after the First World War. Reminders of the noxious and belligerent past remain: alongside the present footbridge is an old rail bridge where the gunpowder would be transported. Rows of millstones line the stream and, on the last section of the walk, we would come to the more substantial shell of a former factory building, its walls built massively to contain blast in the event of the accidents that inevitably happened.

Today it is happily more peaceful, the stream quickly opening out into a small lake occupied by geese and fishermen. Where the path meets Halfpenny Lane, by the lodge to the old works complex, is an informative sign explaining the industry's history.

We kept to the road to cross the gushing mill stream, then left it by another path, heading west over low ridges across fields of winter wheat to the south of the greensand ridge, before making a sharp right turn towards the foothills. The sandy soil drains quickly and although there were some pools in the fields the path itself was walkable; luckily it is not a bridle path so there had been no chance for horses to churn it up.

The route up the hillside is short but steep, climbing through thin woodland, but the footholds were not too slippery. At the top is a grassy meadow with fine views of Chilworth and Shalford, with the pretty village of Shere away to the east.

In another wood we joined the North Downs Way and crossed Halfpenny Lane again, to begin the steady climb up to the church. Here horses are allowed and we passed several Sunday riders.

Worshippers at St Martha's have to leave their cars about half a mile from the church and walk the rest of the way. The service had just ended and we passed them going back to the parking area.

Towards the back of the group was the vicar, bidding us a cheerful 'Good morning', as though consciously acting out John Major's vision of a nation at ease with itself. Our own less rosy view of human nature led us to fear that once he had left we would find the church locked, but it stays open for visitors after the Sunday service. The kindly caretaker - another character from the prime ministerial idyll - was letting children have a go at tolling the bell. He was also explaining to them that the wooden crib, still in place a little while after Christmas, had been designed by Ernest Shepard, who illustrated A A Milne's books.

There has been a church on the hill since Saxon times and remnants of prehistoric stone circles show that it was a place of worship even before that. The present building has some 12th-century features but by the beginning of the 19th century, as pictures in the nave record, it was all but ruined, possibly damaged by an explosion in the gunpowder factory below. In 1848 it was rebuilt, using much of the original stone, and the tower, with its shallow pitched roof, was erected above the crossing. Immediately to the right of the gate at the back of the churchyard is the grave of the actress Yvonne Arnaud.

Just beyond the church, when the North Downs Way sticks to the top of the ridge, our route led us down an even steeper path than the one we had climbed, through more damp woods to a house by an old mill pond and then the former water mill, until recently a trout farm but now closed.

From here, the way back to the footbridge is across low-lying fields, where pools of water had formed. The footpath was not specifically defined and with care it was possible to navigate our way without getting too muddy, although at several stiles we had to pick our stepping-off point carefully. Back in the woods by the stream we passed the forlorn remains of the gunpowder factory and were back at the Percy Arms by 1.30, joining scores of local people for a decent and inexpensive lunch.

This was not an epic walk, but it was full of interest. It put some air into our lungs and kept our legs in some short of shape until longer days and more settled weather allow us to tackle greater distances again.

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