Spring walks

Chalk in an early spring walk
by

Chalk in an early spring walk

After such a rainy winter it’s likely this weekend will see a mass exodus to our Kent footpaths, some of which have taken on a rather liquid quality in recent weeks. Sunday looks as if it’ll be the better of the two days but Saturday will be dry and mild – maybe the better bet if you want a bit of peace and quiet.

I recommend to bide your time… wait until things have dried out a bit, especially if you are thinking of a Greensand Ridge walk around Sevenoaks or Westerham. I’m no expert but the soil and geology of the walks on the sandstone and on the clay of the Weald tend to get very boggy at this time of year; the soils are thicker and water sits a lot more. Add into that the popularity of One Tree Hill, for example, and you find churned up paths and impassable stretches without detours into the brambles.

However, up on the chalk hills the surface water drains away pretty well through the thin soil into the porous chalk – generally speaking that is. Downe has got very squelchy despite having a chalk foundation. This is partly because of the silly fenced in path around the initial fields and the farming-induced quagmire at the end of the final field by the bus stop as you come back into the village. I’ve gone off it a bit out of season I’ve got to say.

  • Flooded woods, Bough Beech
    Flooded woods, Bough Beech, March
  • Bough Beech nature reserve
    Bough Beech nature reserve, March
  • View from Fackenden Down
    View from Fackenden Down, March 2023
  • Gills Lap, Ashdown Forest
    Gills Lap, Ashdown Forest, early March.
  • Petts Wood walk in March
  • Lullingstone in March
  • Chevening walk Point 3-4. March
  • Cherry tree blossom

If you’re in doubt which kind of walk is which, the chalk walks are numbers 2, 3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30 (see top of the page to click on the links – I can’t be bothered to link these here!)

There are also tracks when you can get out of the mud – on the Chiddingstone, the Underriver, Knole and Bough Beech routes there are hardened paths to give relief. I’ve written about the tiny, quiet lanes here.

But there’s another factor to encourage you to walk on the chalk walks – the train. Eynsford, Shoreham (Kent), Otford are all on the Thameslink line down from Blackfriars. Kemsing is served by Victoria trains (but not Sundays sadly) and you can just about use Knockholt on the London Bridge line for walks starting in Andrews Wood (like Polhill and Pluto) if you don’t mind a walk to the start of the walk. There’s also the Hayes (not Middlesex!!) line from London Bridge via Lewisham for walks to Keston Ponds and Downe via Hayes Common.

A break in the rain – quick, catch the train to Shoreham!
by

A break in the rain – quick, catch the train to Shoreham!

The unrelenting rain so far this year has put a bit of a dampener on Kent walks. There has been the odd decent day; the Saturday just gone for example so all has not been lost. The increased rain is pretty much in line with what weather scientists have been predicting given the pace of climate warming – and who would be surprised if by June we are in a drought? It seems to be the way of it these days. Personally, I’d love a bit of snow before February is out, but it seems an unlikely prospect.

Shoreham winter february
The path by the white cross with a view of the Darent Valley

Taking advantage of the sun on Saturday and in need of Vitamin D I hastily organised a train walk with a friend. The Thameslink from Catford whisked us to Shoreham within about 30 minutes – so much better than driving. We put together a route that’s a kind of hybrid of Shoreham Circular mk1 and mk2… so let’s call it Shoreham mk3. Starting from the station we: headed up White Hill to Warren Farm; turned south to Fackenden Down; west down the hillside to the A225; crossed the railway line and headed north up the valley floor; turned left and headed west up Water Lane to Filston Lane – then straight up to hill; turned right and headed north along the path above the white cross, back down to Mill Lane and the riverside path to the Samuel Palmer and back up to the station along the field-edge path. 5.5 miles of bliss in the sunshine. Birds of prey were plentiful: kestrel, buzzard and the now commonly seen spiral of red kites close to the village.

Of course, the paths were quite busy once down in the valley – people knew it was the only day to get out before the rain returned. The mud wasn’t too bad apart from one area of the Filston Lane field where cattle and trodden it into a mire. Otherwise you could have done it in trainers… that chalk geology does drain so well and there are several stretches of hardened paths/tracks on the route in any case.

CLICK HERE FOR GPX INTERACTIVE VERSION OF THE MAP BELOW

OS map of walk
Map of Shoreham mk3 route
Bluebells 2025 – the winner!
by

Bluebells 2025 – the winner!

The season is now over. It was as beautiful as ever at its peak, but this year the dry weather and maybe the cold wind, were not conducive to the bloom’s longevity. Last weekend at Ide Hill and Emmetts Garden the bluebells were gorgeous but already well on the wane. In fact at Ide Hill, brambles have taken over some of the areas where once bluebells thrived. Some of my favourites this year were at the top of Wilmot’s Hill near Ightham Mote; but what has struck me in recent weeks is how pretty bluebells are when mingled with other flowers – notably cuckoo flowers, red campion and stitchwort – at the foot of hedgerows. The Bough Beech walk has some of my favourite examples, Underriver too. Oh yes, and below Polhill Bank on the path to Sepham Farm, where you are likely to be serenaded by yellowhammers (that’s a bird by the way, not a construction tool).

  • New Year’s Wood, Cudham
  • New Year’s Wood, Cudham
  • Emmett Gardens
  • Wild garlic and bluebells, Emmett
  • Emmett Gardens
  • Scord Wood, near Ide Hill
  • Ide Hill 2025
  • Wilmott Hill bluebells
  • Cuckoo flowers and bluebells near Bore Place, Bough Beech
  • Wood anemones and early bluebells, Andrew’s Wood, near Shoreham
  • Lullingstone

So, to the winner and runners-up of the annual Kent Walks Near London bluebell competition:

  1. New Year’s Wood, Cudham chalk paths walk
  2. Hedgerow bluebells, Bough Beech walk
  3. Top of Wilmot’s Hill, One Tree Hill figure of eight walk

Last year’s winner, the Blueberry Lane meadow, at Knockholt was obviously utterly stunning but the rules state that the same location can’t win the following year. I actually visited New Year’s Wood very early in the bluebell season, before they’d quite found their colour, but the seas of young flowers in the late afternoon sunlight were truly beguiling in that quiet, mysterious wood.

Please contact me with any omissions in my not particularly extensive bluebell research. The season only lasts a couple of weeks so it’s not always possible to get around all the walks to view them – I didn’t go to High Elms, Oldbury, Petts Wood, Meenfield Wood (recently scarred by timber work) or Lullingstone over the past month so no idea how good they were.

Bluebells in north-west Kent: where’s best?
by

Bluebells in north-west Kent: where’s best?

It’s fair to say the cobalt carpet has finally spread its magic in many of the woods covered in the KWNL area. Bluebells are now almost fully out on the North Downs chalk hills walks such as the Cudham stroll (in New Year’s Wood particularly), and the various Shoreham circular and Polhill routes. Alas, the timber work going on in Meenfield Wood above Shoreham (west side of valley) may hinder your enjoyment of bluebells there. Further south the Greensand Ridge walks at Underriver, One Tree Hill, Ide Hill (perhaps the best bluebells – so you won’t be alone), Oldbury and Hosey Common are awash with blue. Closest to south-east London, Beckenham Place Park, High Elms and Petts Wood-Hawkwood Estate (in the lower, damper parts) has several swathes too. The Downe walk mk1 doesn’t have a lot of bluebell action en route but a quick diversion down to Downe Bank (the west side of the Cudham valley) from point 3 or at the start of the walk should see you in the magical blue realm. Following the Downe Mk2 walk will be kind of blue too, particularly at Downe Bank and Blackbush and Twenty Acre Shaw woods. The Chiddingstone and Hever routes don’t have many bluebells I can confirm, not that this detracts from these superb strolls. (Pictured below: from 2022 and 2021 bluebells at New Year Wood on Cudham walk; Meenfield wood, Shoreham circular/Polhill routes; Ide Hill route)

  • New Year's Wood: early bluebells
    New Year’s Wood, Knockholt/Cudham: early bluebells
  • New Years Wood bluebells
  • New Year's Wood bluebells 2022
    New Year’s Wood bluebells 2022
  • Bluebells on the Ide Hill walk, April 25, 2015
    Bluebells on the Ide Hill walk in Scord Wood
  • Bluebells, Emmetts/Scords wood, 2017
    Bluebells, Emmetts/Scords wood, 2017
  • bluebells Meenfield wood
    Meenfield Wood, April 2022
  • bluebells
    Meenfield Wood, April 2022

Anyway, here are some bluebell factoids gleaned from an excellent article with far more detail called Bloomageddon: seven clever ways bluebells win the woodland turf war at The Conversation website.

  • They are uniquely adapted to suited the multispecies ancient woodlands of the UK
  • Low temperatures trigger their growth (but might delay their blooming if in April). Bluebell seeds germinate when the temperature drops below 10°C.
  • Bluebells predominantly convert sunlight into fructose allowing them to photosynthesise at low temperatures.
  • They are supreme competitors with other plants, allowing them to carpet woodland floors. But they get help in the form of mycorrhiza, a symbiotic fungi.
  • Almost half the world’s bluebells are found in the UK, they’re relatively rare in the rest of the world.

But please be careful never to tread on any; it takes bluebells years to recover from damage. Digging them up – surely no one visiting this site would consider such a thing – is illegal, and please don’t let dogs trample them either – keep them on the lead.

Cuckoo birds and flowers on the Bore Place/ Bough Beech route
by

Cuckoo birds and flowers on the Bore Place/ Bough Beech route

The little Bough Beech walk is one of those quiet ones: it doesn’t seem much but it creeps up on you and you realise you miss it if you haven’t done it for a while. The vast lake (described here) is a major spectacle at the beginning and end of the walk but doesn’t define the route; Bore Place, a delightfully hidden organic teaching farm and event venue, does. The walk is only two and a half miles (handy if you have a bad foot, as I do) to which you can add an hour‘s pop-in at the lovely nature reserve at the end, where there’s usually news of an interesting oiseaux or two keeping the friendly birders in the hide on their toes. Cuckoos (the star of this particular day), barn owls, kingfishers, migrating osprey are regularly seen here. On my recent walk here, as the fine pre-Easter weather started to break, interesting cloudscapes and shafts of sun reflected from the lake surface, while to the north the Greensand Ridge at Ide Hill and Goathurst Common were swept by very localised squalls. I was struck by how beautiful bluebells are when among cuckoo flowers; that was about as profound a thought I could muster while walking – which is how it should be. Back at home it was amazing to watch the simply incredible US Masters finale, though the football results did not bring me any comparable joy.

  • Trees in water, Bough Beech
  • North lake, Bough Beech
  • Cuckoo flowers and bluebells near Bore Place
  • North lake Bough Beech on a showery day
  • Bough Beech view of the Greensand Ridge
Greening time and an early grass snake
by

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
by

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.

Rockin’ all over the Weald
by

Rockin’ all over the Weald

The sandstone outcrops in and around Tunbridge Wells on the Kent High Weald are little remarked on yet are the most climbed rock formations in the country, given their proximity to London. A great walk can be done from Tunbridge Wells station out past Wellington Rocks on the common, through Happy Valley as far as High Rocks, taking in all of these wonderful, alien-looking formations that appear strangely out of place within the smooth contours of south-east England. Perhaps come back via Rusthall Common, and its Toad Rock. A bit further away, at Groombridge are Harrison’s Rocks, perhaps the most striking of all and easily reached from Tunbridge Wells by taking the Spa Valley railway.

Cheesewringer rock, Rusthall, Tunbridge Wells

The sandstone here is Ardingly sandstone – a different type of rock to the greensand (glaucite) further north on the ridge south of Sevenoaks (see Ide Hill, Underriver, Oldbury and One Tree Hill walks). There are also outcrops, though much smaller, on the Hever and Chiddingstone walks. Our walk last week, in delightful weather (sadly not available this weekend) took in the Cheesewring rocks south of Rusthall Common.

The origins of these rocks, which gained their characteristic cracks during the ice ages, lie in sediment of the Wealden Lake. This covered much of what is now SE England and northern France 145 million years ago. I’ll add a walk at some point to cover these superb spots.

Meanwhile, grey clouds returned this Sunday but it was great to see the fantastic magnolias in full bloom in Scords Wood, as it melds into Emmetts Garden on the Ide Hill walk. The distant fields and even Bough Beech reservoir appeared white in the odd light. I’ve never seen that effect before. It was unsettling. But still, a lovely walk.

(Photographs: Cheeswringer, Tunbridge Wells; magnolia at Emmetts Garden. Adam McCulloch, iphone images so not the best!)

Change is afoot, it’s time to March
by

Change is afoot, it’s time to March

Now that there’s some prolonged sunshine, some of the humungous amounts of mud from February are beginning to dry up. ‘Some‘ being the operative word. Still, let’s welcome the bright weather, which is set to continue this weekend. Saturday could be a bumper day for Kent Walks near London but wellies are definitely still needed – because shaded mud patches will not have dried as yet, not even close. Early spring can be an odd time of year – the trees still appear brown and grey from a distance, though close-up you can see buds. Soon the blackthorn will flower – that’s when spring has sprung for me. Early March in good weather is a very particular time of year – it’s as if spring caught the natural world asleep, and it takes a little time to wake up. But already there’s more birdsong and a bumblebee or two getting busy. I particularly like the Ide Hill, One Tree Hill, Bough Beech and Hever walks at this time of year, the south-facing slope of the Greensand Ridge focuses the warmth and is protected from any cold easterly or northerly winds. You can’t help but feel a bit of optimism, despite you know, everything. The pictures below are from the Bough Beech, Petts Wood, Chevening, Ide Hill and One Tree Hill routes. I love the blackthorn. The featured picture for this post is the woods at Hever in late March. There’s a sheen of primrose and celandine on the woodland floor; I really like the photograph, I can remember every detail of that day.

  • Flooded woods, Bough Beech
    Flooded woods, Bough Beech, March
  • March view over Brasted and Sundridge
  • Blackthorn blossom on One Tree Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent
    Blackthorn blossom on One Tree Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent
It’s time for Fackenden Down
by

It’s time for Fackenden Down

The Fackenden Down walk in late May on a breezy sunny day cannot be bettered. This is the walk on this site with most rewilding going on and plenty of Kent Wildlife Trust-maintained land. The results are a good variety of wildflowers, including several orchid species and sainfoin, lots of butterflies, burnet moths and birds such as buzzards (very common), whitethroat (from May to September) and yellowhammer (if you’re lucky). Some ancient species of livestock such as highland cattle are often used to graze the grasses in small numbers. My route is brilliant, if I do say so myself, and easily accessible by train. There’s a great pub at the end of the walk too – the Samuel Palmer.

I love Magpie Bottom in particular, a sheltered secret feeling valley alive with flowers and great variety of tree foliage colours. Then there the views from Fackenden Down itself, the wild “garden“ along the foot of White Hill and the Down, the view of London and Essex from the high point at Romney Street … it’s terrific, and a good workout with a few steep sections. It comes in at around 12,500 steps.

The Kent Wildlife Trust is in need of volunteers to monitor its livestock. Also it’s looking for urgent donations to enable it to purchase more land at Polhill, across the valley from Fackenden, where it monitors and maintains similarly superb chalk hillside. I’ve diverted the donations to this site to the appeal, but please make sure you chip in.