circular walk

The autumn rush and a Tudor epic
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The autumn rush and a Tudor epic

Despite recent heavyish bursts of rain the walks here are still relatively mud-free. With friends I wielded together two Kent Weald walks on Saturday, the Chiddingstone and Hever circulars, making a pleasing figure-of-8 route of about 11 miles throughout the heart of Tudor Boleyn country. We stopped at two pubs, the Leicester Arms in Penshurst, a really lovely place I hadn’t been to for ages, and the good ol’ Castle Inn in Chiddingstone. The original plan was to include the excellent Henry VIII too, at Hever, but we needed to make up time for a rendezvous in Penshurst. But we did manage to pop in to St Peters church for a look at the wonderful medieval effigy of Margaret Cheyne. Larkins beer was served at both pubs and we tucked into a superb chilli con carne at the Castle Inn. Autumn colours were exceptional and the paths still very solid, with a few decent puddles dotted around. Rain slashed down towards the end of the walk but there were still plenty of leaves still attached to branches to help keep us dry. There were a few buzzards and red kites around but we didn’t see any redwings which we had hoped had arrived from the near continent by now. And yes, I still can’t believe Penshurst Place hasn’t set up a footpath along its southern edge to meet the Eden Valley Path and so avoid hikers having to walk up/down that terrible road.

Hever church (St Peters)

Things will get muddier fairly quickly once we get to the end of the month so it will be wellies before long, or stout waterproof hiking shoes.

Here is the GPX map of the Hever/Chiddingstone/Penshurst figure of 8 – I’ll give it its own page soon.

GPX maps

I’ve updated all the URLs of the OS GPX maps listed for the walks for easier access (somehow the OS had sort of rerouted them or altered the hyperlinks). They should all work much better now.

Circular walk sign confusion alert
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Circular walk sign confusion alert

It’s great to bump into walkers using my instructions; I can usually spot the pdfs a mile off! But it’s not so great when those walkers are lost … while cycling on Sunday I bumped into two intrepid hikers on Sunday in Downe. Unfortunately, they were trying to follow the Cudham Chalk Paths walk but had gone rather off piste. They had thought that the green and yellow signs for the much longer Cudham Circular walk, as advertised by Bromley Council and Long Distance Walks Association, were route markers for the more modest walk at KWNL. I was able to explain the error and direct them (hopefully) back towards Cudham but the thought that people were using existing signs to follow my walks was terrifying. Please don’t do that! There are no KWNL walks that have specific signposts; the routes are only here on this website.

Wintry weekend in west Kent
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Wintry weekend in west Kent

At last, sharp sunny days with frost. Walkers in the North Downs were rewarded at the weekend by a cobalt sky, heavy frost, colourful sunsets and perhaps the remnants of snow from the previous Wednesday night – it was hard to tell where the frost stopped and the snow started. I walked at Beckenham Place Park on Saturday morning before taking the Fackenden Down walk in the afternoon. As soon as we got a bit higher in the hills, the conditions became increasingly picturesque. Magpie Bottom, a hollow that faces north, was a picture, but unfortunately my camera battery had died and we resorted to phone camera images. The last time I saw similar conditions was in January 2022 but on that occasion the temperature must have been even lower because the frost remained glued to the trees even in mid afternoon whereas on Saturday there was some kind of thaw happening where the sun was felt. A sublime, memorable walk.

Please contact me at ammcculloch49@gmail.com with comments about the walks.

Pictured below: sunset from the top of Fackenden Down; moonshine at Fackendon Down; Adam (the author) and Bonny (Photo by S. Hart); looking east into Magpie Bottom; looking along the little valley north from Dunstall Farm; Dunstall Farm; ice on Beckenham Place Park’s lake; swimmers in the lake; looking east along the lake; the lake amid frosty reedbeds

Dank you very much 2024!
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Dank you very much 2024!

Happy Christmas and New Year everyone! Great to see so many people use Kent Walks Near London for their end-of-year outings once again – particularly as yet again the festive season has failed to produce those ‘crisp’, ‘frosty’, ‘bracing’ walks the Sunday supplements are so fond of telling us about. But we plough on regardless… learning to enjoy the dankness and the shades of grey, the browns and blacks of the Kent countryside at this time of year. Well we would have ploughed on if it hadn’t been for horrendous bouts of cold and flu that has grounded even this most militant of militant Kent walkers. I’ve barely managed a foot-foray in the past couple of months.

Yesterday, though, I took on the mighty High Elms loop – adventure is guaranteed once you’ve got past the social dog walkers, many of whom don’t seem to get more than few hundred yards from the car park. I really enjoy the woods on this walk, one huge holm oak particularly commanding attention on the quiet side of the loop away from the High Elms centre. There are also pines, and some larches, and an unlovely but wildlife-friendly scrubby field on the opposite side of Shire Lane that always attracts kestrels (perhaps owls too, late in the dusk) hunting for mice etc. Birds were thin on the ground. I heard a thrush, but other than a solitary kestrel and the usual robins, great tits and parakeets there was nothing to report. I thought I heard an owl, but I suspect it was just some bloke putting on a silly voice while calling his dog.

Photographs: A kestrel wheels away after hovering over the scrubby field between Farnborough and High Elms; winter dusk in the woods; one of High Elms’ many paths; a sweet chestnut in late November at Lullingstone’s Beechen Woods.

The area around the Beeche centre and cafe at High Elms – the old Lubbock gardens – are great to explore, especially with kids. The walk is pretty gentle, with no steep sections and it’s easy to shorten it if you need to. I needed to as dusk and a bout of sneezing settled in. Parking in the car park at High Elms is ideal but it gets very busy, which is why my route suggests parking in Farnborough village near The Woodman or the church and starting/ending there.

Summer ended at Camber; look forward to October
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Summer ended at Camber; look forward to October

October, along with June, July and January (all the J’s) is a ‘classic’ walking month. We all know about the turning leaves so I won’t bother describing the colour changes that occur! What I like best are the migrating, busy birds, the every changing cloudscapes, the sudden showers, the unpredictable temperature changes (‘wow it’s warm’, ‘wow it’s like Iceland!’) and, best of all, the light. It’s a real shame when the clocks go back at the end of the month because it denies us hikers of another hour of daylight. Why we continue with this bizarre clock policy defeats me; I guess it’s as British as the mythical replacement rail bus or surprise roadworks. It is what it is … sigh. Rant over.

  • Polhill view October
  • Knole
    Knole, early October.
  • Rainbow, October
  • view over Weald
    Emmett’s view over Weald in early October 2015
  • Downe near point 3, autumn
  • Downe
  • Darent valley autumn

Now, Camber Sands – that’s where we went last week to fully mark the end of summer. A fish flatbread with chilli jam, salad and sour cream at Dungeness’s brilliant Snack Shack* set us up for a late afternoon swim in the luckily non-sewagey waters at Camber. We followed this with a drink at the delightful Ypres Castle Arms in Rye, a tucked-away pub with a great beer garden and view of the salt marsh and Channel. As dusk began a little thunderstorm was flickering away somewhere near France but gradually crept closer. On the way home the ‘little’ storm suddenly became very large and caught up with us: spectacular fork lightning and bursts of torrential rain and hail propelled us past Northiam, Bodiam, Hawkhurst and even Tunbridge Wells – where of course the A21 was shut, necessitating an abysmally long diversion. But then the closure of major roads mid-evening, like mythical rail replacement buses and the clocks going back is something us Brits seem to just have to tolerate.
* I recommend the Snack Shack but go before 2pm if poss, it gets very busy and perhaps has become a bit too popular. An alternative is the superb Britannia Pub just up the road.

A sultry stroll at Fackenden Down
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A sultry stroll at Fackenden Down

The hot sunny weather – this September has been pronounced already as one of the hottest on record in the UK – has been good news for butterflies. The Fackenden walk is particularly good for viewing them; the first few sections after the right turn on White Hill were awash with chalkhill blues, red admirals, large whites, meadow browns and gatekeepers this week. I was particularly intrigued by the numbers of brimstones flying during my sultry stroll there last Monday. These beauties are the offspring of the butterflies that emerged from hibernation in April and May. With so many scabious and devil’s-bit scabious still flowering along with the likes of fading marjoram, valerian, wild carrot and trefoil, there is plenty of foodstuff still around. That wonderful ‘garden’ running halfway up between White Hill and Fackenden Down is great for other creatures too: it’s clearly good habitat for reptiles and birds, though I’ve never personally seen much there, not even a whitethroat, blackcap or yellowhammer this summer – just a few goldfinches (a beautiful but common bird), red kite, buzzards and green woodpeckers after the many ants on these slopes. I did spot a rapidly disappearing common lizard though, after hearing a rustle in the leaf litter. Earlier in the walk, at Austin Spring I was delighted by a view of a hobby (a smallish, fast-flying falcon) hurtling straight towards me, presumably chasing dragonflies.

I’ve taken to doing the Fackenden route the ‘wrong’ way round these days: so I take the path on the left up White Hill that culminates in the steps, then across the Dunstall Farm fields to Austin Spring and Romney Street, Magpie Bottom (also great for flowers and insects) and eventually to Fackenden Down. Either way is great, I suppose I just want to save that ‘garden’ with its kaleidoscopic haze of grasses, scabious and insects until last. (Pictured: red admiral, brimstone, red admiral, the path linking White Hill and Fackenden Down looking north, a scabious flower and, below, a male chalkhill blue.)

Something to chew on in Cudham
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Something to chew on in Cudham

Here’s a new circular route not far to drive from SE London that’s great for a bit of quiet contemplation and is fun to navigate. Sadly public transport options for getting there aren’t great, though the R5 and R10 buses from Orpington station do drop by from time to time and Knockholt station is a couple of miles away. The Cudham/Knockholt area is rich in paths and sleepy lanes, linking up its chalk valleys and lovely woods. With lots of old hedgerows, meadows and pasture it’s not bad for birdlife with buzzards and finches aplenty.

The walk starts at the recreation ground car park just off Cudham South Lane, close to the hamlet’s lovely church and attractive pub, the Blacksmiths Arms, and takes about 1.5 hours. As car parks go it’s a really pleasant one, too, with playground and huge cricket pitch backed by trees. I’ve called the route “Cudham chalk paths” because it sounds nice and early on there are a couple of trails where the North Downs chalk comes right to the surface. It also differentiates it from the many Cudham circular walks on various other websites.

Being close to walks at Downe, Knockholt and Andrews Wood/Polhill, it’s an easy route to combine with others for a full day out. It also is a bit of a marker as it is the 25th walk I’ve added to Kent Walks Near London. I’m sure there’s another 25 I can rustle up… and I’m open to ideas.

I’ve only ever done this four-mile walk on dull drizzly days so my photos are lacking dazzle but, like I say, it’s a walk that seems to suit quiet reflection and I wouldn’t want to oversell it.

• Full instructions with PDF, GPX maps and all the trimmings here.

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