After the watery dip into the Ashdown Forest in midweek it was back to terra-not-so firma today with a squelchy trip to Lullingstone. Up the steps we went, past the Roman Villa to vast flint and chalk fields where several buzzards glided. It’s strange how wild birds of prey congregate near Eagle Heights; I guess they just want to peep at their captive exotic cousins. Storm clouds were fragmenting to the east having a deposited another ocean on our blighted county.
The river was extremely high and the water meadows living up to their billing with Eynsford’s small herd of highland cattle looking a bit hacked off as they nuzzled soggy hay bales and pondered their liquid domain.
On the way home we popped in on Eynsford Castle, basically a bunch of Norman ruins. The place was built within 20 years of the Battle of Hastings on the site of a Saxon tower by William de Eynsford I (for it is he) but was vandalised and left derelict 300 years later after an ownership dispute. Such a shame, it enjoyed a beautiful setting close to the river and would have contributed significantly to English Heritage or the National Trust if it had been maintained. Such a lack of foresight some of these medieval people.
Kent walks near London 