Charting a bus to visit Chartwell

Sunday 7th September 2025

Blog reader Natasha recently got in touch to suggest I visit Chartwell House in Kent and sample the options to travel there by bus. Situated down a country lane (called Mapleton Road) off the B2026, Hosey Hill, south of Westerham, the National Trust property, famous for being the home of Sir Winston Churchill, is indeed quite a challenge to visit by bus.

It’s OK if you want to go on a summer Sunday when TfL’s route 246 is extended from its normal Westerham terminus southwards for seven more minutes to Chartwell, but it’s harder in the week and Saturdays.

Metrobus runs a 236 between Oxted, Westerham, Edenbridge and Lingfield four times a day which passes the end of the country lane but until June of this year, Saturdays had been a no go with no service provision at all. However, from 14th June Surrey County Council helpfully included Chartwell (and two other National Trust properties) within its Surrey Connect DRT operation on a Saturday thereby providing a public transport facility on that day.

Chartwell must therefore have a unique variety of ways to be reached by bus according to the day of the week: a TfL (hourly) bus route (Sundays), a low frequency rural bus route (Mondays to Fridays) and a DRT (Saturdays).

At Natasha’s suggestion I gave all three a try out.

For those not in the know National Trust’s website for Chartwell House includes the following advice…

As that’s rather small print, here it is again…

“Sundays and public holidays: Catch the 246 London Bus route from Bromley North (passing close to Bromley South train station) to Chartwell – see the 246 Timetable for more details. The 236 bus also operates between East Grinstead and Oxted, stopping at the end of Mapleton Road. Please note this does mean walking along a country lane to get to the Chartwell entrance.”

I’d give that five out of ten. No mention the 246 is summer only (nor its dates of operation) or the 236 is only Mondays to Fridays, nor that travelling from East Grinstead involves catching route 409 to Lingfield where a change of bus is needed with an eight to ten minute connection to/from the 236 as it no longer serves East Grinstead direct, nor any reference to the new Saturday only DRT option.

But, at least it mentions buses. Many visitor attractions don’t, assuming everyone will arrive by car.

As it’s the easiest, my first try out was TfL’s route 246. I only travelled from Westerham Green, which is always a pleasant place to wait for a bus, especially on a warm sunny Sunday lunch time, and caught the third departure of the day at 12:11, which had left Bromley at 11:23. There are five more departures each hour until 17:18.

Around half a dozen passengers alighted in Westerham leaving five on board continuing to Chartwell and just myself boarding.

It only took four minutes to reach Chartwell along the B2065 and the narrow country lane…

… but another minute was spent edging our way through the very large and crowded car park indicating only a fraction of the visitors arrive by bus.

The bus has six minutes layover before returning to Bromley at 12:24 with seven people waiting and boarding presumably having spent either an hour or two hours taking a tour of the property and gardens.

I would imagine the latter as there’s much to see in both as I remembered from a previous visit. This time I hopped back on the bus and returned to Westerham for some lunch.

Next up was a visit on Thursday a week ago using Metrobus route 236 (Oxted-Westerham-Edenbridge-Longfield) which as explained above no longer continues to East Grinstead.

Buses leave Oxted station at 09:02, 11:02, 13:02 and in school holidays at 15:02 with return journeys from the end of the lane near Chartwell House at 10:33, 12:33, 17:24 and in school holidays 14:33.

The House is only open between 11:00 and 15:40 (last entry) with the gardens open from 10:00 to 17:00 so the only journeys suitable are the 11:02 and 13:02.

As the advice on the website explains you need to be aware its a narrow country lane you’ll be walking along from the bus stop to the grounds.

I decided not to try it out for the purposes of just writing up the experience for this blog – it didn’t pass the risk assessment, having seen the road including its blind bends, first hand from the comfort of the 246 bus on Sunday.

I boarded the 236 in Edenbridge having travelled there by train on the newly opened line, after its recent closure for engineering works, and it was nice to bump into blog reader Adrian and have a chat on the journey from Redhill.

It’s not far to walk to the bus stop for the 236 and the bus arrived on time with four on board. It’s only a short ride to the junction with Mapleton Road and I saw the bus stop post and flag on the corner for southbound buses but there didn’t seem to be an equivalent on the northbound side towards Westerham and it didn’t look a very safe place to wait for a bus.

Suffice to say none of the passengers alighted and we headed on to Westerham and Oxted.

I doubt the 236 sees much custom for Chartwell. Ever.

And so to what could well be the most convenient way to visit Chartwell – Surrey Connect’s new Saturday only DRT operation which hops over the border to Kent specifically to provide a bus service to. not only Chartwell House, but also nearby National Trust properties at Quebec House and Emmetts Garden from Oxted railway station. And of course as always with DRT the marketing hype extols you can ride whenever you want to travel. It’s that good.

This new initiative is called the NT Shuttle service and I found details on the Surrey Connect website which promotes its virtues as reducing “the stress and travel car-free on your next trip to the countryside”. It sounded just the job and I noted “all journeys must be booked in advance” even though a timetable is also provided indicating there are four scheduled journeys.

As you can see from the heading you need to be sure you use the “East north territory” on the Surrey Connect app, as it’s no good trying to book a journey to Chartwell in one of the eight other territories on the app, as that won’t work.

Visitors from outside the “East North” territory need to be aware of that.

Confusingly the online map of the “East North Zone” doesn’t include any reference to Chartwell or the other two properties, but perhaps that’s because it only started three months ago in June.

I was in Oxted on a recent Saturday lunch time so tried to book a journey from Oxted railway station to Emmetts Garden which would take me past Chartwell, according to the timetable. As you can see I tried booking at 12:42, three minutes before the timetable says a bus would leave.

Three minutes after that unhelpful response telling me to go away, sure enough, a Surrey Connect branded minibus arrived at the bus stop as scheduled.

I asked the driver if he was going to Chartwell which he confirmed and I then asked if I had to book the journey before travelling to which he surprisingly replied no, you can just come on board and travel.

In the event having been to Chartwell the previous Sunday and explored the 236 option, and as I would have had to hang around for an hour before the minibus would bring me back, I decided not to travel and watched the minibus set off with no passengers on board.

I noticed there was no information on the bus stop about the NT Shuttle so not surprisingly it must be carrying fresh air.

Just to check things out while writing up this blog I tried to book a journey for the following Saturday and was pleased to see the app offered me a journey on all four departures from 09:45 to 12:45.

But it’s probably easier to just turn up and have a minibus ride to yourself. That’s if you’re in the know….or read this blog.

And that’s how you visit Chartwell House by bus, but be sure to know what day of the week it is. And when route 246 ceases its Sunday extension for the winter period.

Roger French

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Please note this is the last Su blog for the 2025 summer season.