What a wonderful walk today. The Oldbury-Ightham-Stone Street jaunt is a bit of an epic by KWNL standards at 6 miles, but every metre is worthwhile. I started badly, however, by telling a group of mountain bike riders they were wrongly cycling on a footpath. I was sure I was right but it turned out I was wrong. It was a bridlepath and they were fully entitled to ride on it. It wasn’t an unpleasant exchange and it was quite funny that I had to admit I was wrong after being shown the map. I ended up saying “Well I haven’t seen any horses, have you?” but I was trying not to laugh. I’m a country lane cyclist myself; I can’t understand cycling down paths and bumping over roots and being brushed by nettles. And I can’t understand cyclists steaming or wobbling down main roads with queues of nervous car drivers behind them. For me, the whole point is a bit of peace and quiet. But that’s me. Live and let live I say; each to their own.

I hadn’t done this walk since Covid. My friend Steve introduced me to it in July 2020. The lavender has been largely harvested but as a result, on that section of the walk I didn’t pass a soul. Interestingly the springs of the Greensand Ridge seemed to be unaffected by the dry and hot weather, so ponds were looking healthy-ish, and the little streams near Ightham tinkled beautifully.

One of the oddities of the walk is that despite being on the Greensand Ridge you don’t get the same extensive Weald of Kent views that you do further west, at One Tree Hill and around Ide Hill. There are just too many trees in the way! But I did get great views of the Spitfires from Biggin Hill on their joyride flights; they seem to use this area to break away from the accompanying photo plane.

Oldbury woods cover an iron age fort. It’s easy to see how this would have been a fortification in the centuries leading up to the Roman invasion but surely the Britons must have chopped down loads of trees to give themselves a field of view.

There is a similar feature at Keston, just south of the ponds. Navigation is not so straightforward at two points: between Stone Street hamlet and St Lawrence’s Church, and on Oldbury Hill itself, so check the GPX. Despite going slightly wrong twice (but quickly getting back on track thanks to the OS GPX) I was back home for the very enjoyable England v Germany football final – an excellent end to the afternoon. It’s a great walk, I really recommend it.