Short walks

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.

A very summery type of autumn
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A very summery type of autumn

High pressure is dominating the weather and the near-drought continues. There is no mud on any of the walks, which once would have been unheard of for mid-October. For the past week it’s felt as if summer’s lease has no intention of expiring anytime soon. Amid mild temperatures and cerulean skies we enjoy the spectacles of the season as the greens of September become more mottled and varied as they meld into the yellows, oranges and reds of November. Rosehips, elderberry and sloes decorate the hedgerows and fungi mystically appear in woodland and grassy fringes. I’m not one for foraging; I much prefer to look and leave well alone (apart from blackberries).

Birdlife still seems somnambulant: I’ve been hoping for migrations but in this still weather nothing much seems to stir. A week ago, in the wake of Storm Amy, hundreds of house martins passed overhead heading east with the wind, as a full moon rose in a purple sky. But this was in Lower Sydenham not on the Kent walks. My only notable sightings have been a kingfisher on River Eden on the Chiddingstone walk; red kites over Lullingstone and Downe; grey plover and lapwings on the ever-expanding shoreline at Bough Beech reservoir (I’ve never seen the water so low); and buzzards at Polhill.

My walk at Fackenden Down today (pictured) was serene, colourful and wonderfully warm. But this isn’t autumn, surely. Lovely though it was, I would quite like to feel a fresher breeze, walk with the threat of a squall, squish through a puddle and ponder whether to wear wellies or trainers. That time will come I guess, I’ll enjoy summer’s lease while it lasts.

Quiet North Downs, busy South Downs; all good
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Quiet North Downs, busy South Downs; all good

A walk around Birling Gap in East Sussex amid the famous Seven Sisters chalk cliffs was just the tonic for a dreamy August last afternoon. It’s a brilliant trip that we do fairly regularly. We started on the beach at Eastbourne with a picnic while enjoying the August airshow, before hitting Beachy Head and the Gap. After a pint at the superb Tiger Inn in ancient East Dean, we topped off the adventure with a 45-minute sunset stroll along the lower Cuckmere river from the Seven Sisters visitor centre to the sea. It was blissful but busy with tourists and folk down from London … which is just fine with me; it’s great to see everyone out enjoying the beautiful countryside, and the joy people were feeling in the sea air was kind of infectious. It felt a bit like going to the cinema – the pleasure of a shared experience of wonderful scenes is a great thing. Sussex by the Sea is a special place.

  • Comma butterfly, Chevening
  • View from scarp above Chevening
  • Looking up at the Seven Sisters
  • Birling Gap
  • Visitors at Birling Gap
  • River Cuckmere, sunset
  • Gleaming chalk cliffs, Birling Gap
  • Queue for the bus, Birling Gap
  • The chalk cliffs were fascinating close up
  • Near Chevening House
  • View of the Vale of Holmesdale near Chevening
  • North Downs view
    View from the top of the scarp, near Knockholt
  • An egret at dusk in the Cuckmere river
    An egret at dusk in the Cuckmere river

The following day it was back to the North Downs for the Knockholt / Chevening route; the first time this year I reckon. As mentioned in my previous post I was tipped off by a helpful KWNL’er that there was a useful diversion at the Point 5 which means you don’t have to walk on Sundridge Road anymore. And so there was. It was great. Very sleepy, dry, Augusty, quiet. And so few people! I missed the crowds at Birling Gap. Well, I didn’t reeeeeally; I love solitude too. Without the waves, gleaming chalk, and sea breeze, the western North Downs don’t have quite the easy allure of their southern counterparts; but for quiet, great views, glimpses of the medieval past and atmosphere they are wonderful. But so few south-east Londoners seem to quite know what’s on the doorstep – which is the point of this website I suppose.

Greening time and an early grass snake
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Greening time and an early grass snake

To the accompanying sounds of chiffchaffs, blackcaps, wrens, tits, dunnocks and robins, I trekked the Polhill/Pluto route from Andrews Wood car park on Shackland Road. Suddenly there’s a sheen of green in the tree canopies; in fact there are canopies – not just stark branches – the colour scheme has seamlessly moved on from the gentle grey/browns of winter. Below the greening trees wood anemones and early bluebells are mixing with celandine, early cowslips, primroses and the odd cuckoo flower to add pixels of vibrant hues. I was delighted to spot a long, thin and beautifully patterned grass snake after hearing leaves rustling under a bush, but I couldn’t bring the camera to bear in time: damn autofocus! Slow worms were plentiful though, but you have to know where to look and avoid disturbing them. Buzzards took delight in the clear sky and subtle breezes. A fantastic walk.

  • View across the mouth of the Darent Valley from Polhill in early April
    View across the mouth of the Darent Valley from Polhill in early April
  • The greening of Meenfield Wood
  • Wood anemones and bluebells, Andrew’s Wood
  • Just blue sky and fresh foliage, Meenfield Wood
  • Gorse and early foliage across the valley from Meenfield Wood to Andrew’s Wood
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.

Winter weekends and the wonder of staying in
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Winter weekends and the wonder of staying in

I have a country walking addiction. It’s so integral to my life rhythm that it’s hardly thinkable that a weekend will pass without being able to get out to the Kent countryside for a few hours to enjoy the fresh air and exercise. So it’s quite something that for the second weekend in a row I’m going to fail in my mission!

There is a saying ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing’. Well I agree with the latter bit; I’ve got plenty of bad clothing. But I think we can all rightfully take umbrage with the glib opening statement. There is definitely such a thing as bad weather and it seems to arrive in the early hours of every Saturday morning and finish sometime after dark on Sunday!

The result has been that I’ve busied myself with other tasks, and entertained myself in other ways. I’ve survived. I’ve even enjoyed myself. I went to the cinema to see Conclave (excellent). I booked theatre tickets to see Dr Strangeglove (also excellent, and a much-needed good laugh). I practised the saxophone a lot. I read books. I got a filthy cold. The intensity of these weekly storms and the rainfall totals suggests the climate crisis models were entirely correct. But let’s not get too depressed: the wind farms must be pouring out the megawatts.

One of my favourite winter pictures on a west Kent walk: deer at Knole, February 2021. Header pic from a few days later also at Knole. Snow, eh? It doesn’t happen often enough for me

Photo memories of perfect walks

You’ll have noticed (or not), I’ve finally got round to replacing the autumn photographs on the Kent Walks header image to winter images. Each of those photos bring back memories of particularly beautiful walks with unusual light and atmospheric conditions, all taken since 2020 I reckon. The snowy scenes were in January and February 2021 and December 2022. Each of those walks, at Fackenden, Knole, and Lullingstone, with sons and a friend was pure magic. Snow does that to a scene. Taking photos was easy, apart from the risk of frostbite. But I’ve hardly used the camera in the past couple of months; all the best light has been mid-week when I’ve been busy at work. So I’ve given the shutter-clicking a bit of a rest. The newsletter has also had a rest, but I will get it going again in January when hopefully I will have something new to say about this landscape on our doorstep that I love so much.

Weald of wonder near Westerham
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Weald of wonder near Westerham

An El Classico of an autumn day. And about time too. We decided that the Hosey walk on the Greensand ridge route at Westerham was the one for us, given the foliage, and views of the Weald from Mariner’s Hill. This time last year the Heaverham circular walk at Kemsing provided something very similar but the warmth of that late October 2023 day seemed freakish at the time. Today was more normal, just a lovely day – neither warm nor cool. The leaf colours, especially in the little valley of the infant River Darent, were superb as hopefully the photos below show, and the vista across the roof of Churchill’s Chartwell gaff as magnificent as ever. I was expecting to see redwings recently arrived from the Netherlands and generally more birds flocking together. But nothing much happened on that front, although mistle thrush were heard and a large buzzard lifted off close to us in one meadow. A pint at the Westerham Brewery place on the way back was an outstanding finale. However, the effect wore off as my football team lost.

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.

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Bough Beech wildlife and ice-cream

A lovely summer’s day coincided with a planned outing to Bough Beech for the shortish walk and a stroll around the former Kent Wildlife Trust nature reserve with its fine bird hide overlooking a lush and large pond. Birder Dave was in attendance and was ably assisted by the Merlin app, although Birder Dave is the more accurate judge of bird calls and songs. We heard spotted flycatcher, saw three marsh tits, a hobby, kingfishers, grass snakes, heard raven (could it be that noisy individual who ‘lives’ in the Douglas fir by Chartwell?), saw green sandpiper, flocks of lapwings (once a common site in all parts of Kent, but now no longer) and the usuals. Better still was the fine company and the encounters with friendly birders who were very familiar with the site and knowledgeable. The Bough Beech is the only walk at KWNL where you can buy an ice cream half way through. And a top quality one too. At Bore Place farm there’s a sort of little barn round the back with freezers full of top notch organic lollies and tubs. You pay with via a card reader or QR code thingy – it took me a while to work out how to pay because I couldn’t be arsed to find my glasses so kept misreading ‘charge’ as ‘change’. Duh.