This route, no 28, is similar to walk 27, but is better for people walking on Sundays, when there is no train service. You can start it from the lovely Chequers Inn, Heaverham (if you buy a drink/meal); Kemsing village car park; or Mon-Sat from Kemsing station. Rather like the Chevening/Knockholt walk it’s another chalk escarpment route that drops down into the Vale of Holmesdale, and uses short stretches of the North Downs Way. The link below includes the usual Google map and the more useful OS map, plus written directions. PDF to download will follow in a few days!
The Underriver walk was a picture last weekend, two unseasonably warm days that probably represented the last knockings of summer. It felt like summer and looked like summer with foliage mostly green and few birds flocking apart from some buzzards and jackdaws in a high altitude spiral. It’s another walk I now do in reverse to the sequence described on this site. One of the reasons for this is to avoid the sharp uphill section in the holloway by the “dancing beeches” just past the oasthouses at point 3. Coming downhill here then enjoying the route past Romshed farm seems a bit more civilised now I’ve done it a few times. At One Tree Hill the National Trust has trimmed the hedgerows and blackthorn clumps back to enlarge the panoramic view – and very effectively so. I’ve walked past that spot since childhood, though much more often these days, and that timeless view across the Low Weald to the Ashdown Forest and as far as the Surrey Hills in the west still grabs my attention. It’s a popular spot, as you can see in the picture below.
Walks this weekend will have a different flavour. The ground will be wetter with plenty of freshly fallen leaves. The temperature will be a lot crisper than last week, perhaps by nearly 10C, but with blue skies forecast it should be a beautiful couple of days for a stroll. And a first proper taste of autumn.
For many of us, the coming heatwave will be a bit OTT what with not being particularly near a beach and with so little access to open-air pools in London – unless you are lucky enough to live close to one. There was a time when we were much better served with lidos but – rather like the railway cuts 60 years ago – short-term profit for a few was allowed to triumph over health and environmental benefits for the many in the early 1980s. The result is that the queue for places like Brockwell Park Lido is usually pretty mega in hot weather. Crap isn’t it? But there it is. Compare with Germany where every city seems to provide fantastic open water swimming spaces. Beckenham to the rescue. The pleasant lake there offers £5.80 tickets for an hour long swim and it looks as if slots are still available this week. (Pictured below: the woods on the Cudham and Downe walks offer respite from the heat)
Anyway, I’ve noticed my old blog post on Bough Beech reservoir getting a lot of hits. This is probably because people are dreaming of having a swim. Forget it. It’s not possible there I’m afraid and strictly forbidden – it’s a nature reserve and an important facility, so it’s definitely a no-go zone. I’ve noticed people taking to local rivers; the River Pool, the Darent, the Medway, the Eden and the Cray, in certain places. I wouldn’t recommend it: there are just too many issues, including pollution, dangerous substances in the water etc, and although I know a few places where I might take a dip it would be irresponsible to recommend them to others (he said, pompously). OK, OK, OK … cycle or walk from Tonbridge Castle to Penshurst Place on the Hayden country park path; there’s a lovely spot a mile short of Penshurst for a dip in the Medway. But you won’t be alone!
Summer evening sky, early July
The beach is the best option along with dedicated sites such as Leybourne Lakes just west of Maidstone, and the previously mentioned Beckenham Place Park. But other than swimming, woodland walks are great for getting exercise while staying cooler at this time of year: Petts Wood, the Meenfield woods routes near Shoreham, the Heverwalk and Hosey Common are the best for shade, along with walks within Bromley borough (but not yet on this site) at High Elms and Hayes Common towards Downe. Yesterday on the superb, understated Cudham walk, just as we began to feel the power of the sunshine we would enter the cool woods and comfort levels shot up. Take water obvs. It was on 10 July that the Battle of Britain started, so a good day to hear the distant murmur of Merlin engines as the Biggin Hill Spitfires headed out on their joyriding sorties.
Before we start waxing lyrical about spring, wildflowers, birds and bees etc etc let’s salute the beauty of woods in late winter, particularly in March, which tends to be sunnier than February and reflects all kinds of subtle auburn nuances in the leafless trees. Around Bough Beech reservoir near Ide Hill the woods have been partially flooded by high water levels making for scenes somewhat reminiscent of the opening parts of that excellent film The Revenant. On the final Saturday in March the first bluebells, generally those in sunny spots in hedgerows, were showing, along with primroses, cuckooflower and so on but those trees around the north lake at Bough Beech in the late afternoon sun in their best end-of-winter finery stole the show. What a superb place that is to watch the sun go down. Pictured below: swamped woods at Bough Beech, silver birches in Stock Wood on the Hever walk, a stream though light woods at Bore Place, and a view back to the Greensand Ridge and Ide Hill across fallow fields from near Bough Beech on a perfectly serene late March day – winter’s last knockings.Finally, an iPhone pic ofShoreham and the Darent Valley on the Polhill/Shoreham Circular walk on Sunday 27 March… a rare day of low misty cloud and sunny patches.
The Chislehurst station to Petts Wood station walk via the Hawkswood Estate might be ‘just’ a suburban saunter surrounded by 1930s mock Tudor, but it has loads going for it: it’s obviously great for public transport being between two stations with links to inner SE London; it’s near to London; it has surprisingly good views at points as far as Biggin Hill and Croydon; the woodland is beautifully managed by the National Trust with a huge variety of trees and restored patches of the heathland that was once common here; there are loads of paths to explore often crossing mysterious little streams running down to the lovely Kyd Brook river (which later becomes the Quaggy and joins the Ravensbourne); and it’s big, so makes for a decent workout. You can go off piste without really getting truly lost because the extensive woods are enclosed by suburbia. On the other hand you can adapt it into a much longer walk taking in Scadbury Park nature reserve and Jubilee country park, both adjacent to the Petts Wood/Hawkwood hub. There are usually plenty of people around, in my experience mostly very friendly and with docile pooches. Owls can be seen and heard at dusk and woodland birds proliferate here.
Today, in glorious late March weather, it was a picture. My route is intended as a guide to some of the best bits: the heather areas with their raised path embankments; the central fields with their long views; hidden ponds and mires; chestnut groves; the Willett Memorial glade; pine clumps and bluebell vistas. And once you leave the woods to get to the station, there are quite a few interesting inter-war houses and gardens, and the town of Petts Wood doesn’t disappoint when it comes to food and beverages.
Kent walks near London scrub up well on crisp late winter days like … today! Here are views of the One Tree Hill walks and the Downe walk from recent sunny days.
A beautiful dusk walk around Chartwell and Mariners Hill on the Hosey route, accompanied by a stunning full moon and the mew of a buzzard, hit the spot last Sunday afternoon. It’s not always the early bird that catches the worm, you know. The mud just before point 8, the ‘dramatic’ crossing of the infant River Darent, is hilariously sloshy and treacherous enough to defeat any footwear bar stilts fitted with spikes but can be avoided by walking parallel in the grassy field alongside and rejoining just before the log bridge. A satisfying hose down of boots after returning home was called for.
I hope everyone who dips into this website had a decent Christmas.
Yesterday (Boxing Day) there was a strange interlude on the Downe walk: a shard of blue sky suddenly appeared ahead, to the north. This was a most welcome sight given I’d accepted the walk would be a uniformly grey and dank trudge. It was also completely out of context with what has been a remarkably gloomy couple of months.
I hadn’t realised that a similar clear gap had developed behind me to the south west. Suddenly, without warning, the landscape was bathed in an utterly spellbinding glow. This reminder that the sun also rises in the UK lingered on for 45 minutes or so as curtains of impenetrable low cloud with rain began to threaten from the London direction. It was pure magic while it lasted.
The final field on the walk (pictured below) was laughably squelchy – definitely wellies only. The mud on all the walks is fairly horrendous at the moment. I was concerned to see the Polhill Bank/Pluto walk being viewed a lot on this site over the past 24 hours. The steep escarpment slope will be absolutely treacherous at the moment. The Fackenden route would be best avoided for the same reason. The best bets for lower mud levels are Knole and Lullingstone (although the woods will be a quagmire). One thing about mud though: I reckon you get more fitness benefits from trying to squelch your way round the walks, necessitating extra and lighter steps. (Best not to take dogs to Knole because of deer; they must be kept on lead at all times.)
The final (horrendously muddy) field during Boxing Day 2021’s half hour sunny interlude. This was once a lovely wildflower meadow with hawthorn trees, alive with bees and home to yellowhammers and bullfinches. But all biodiversity was ripped out around 2014.
Sultry summer evenings are very much my thing. There’s been a promise of a storm in south-east London for some time without one materialising. We’ve even heard them from time to time, thunder rumbling around, sudden winds forming as if a tornado were nearby and, beyond London, huge puddles and mud show where the downpours have already struck. On Saturday the humidity is on the up, the atmosphere is murky, lofty cloud peaks emerge from the haze and you walk only 50 metres before the first drops of sweat form. I love it. I don’t love the idea of floods and unnaturally damaging weather of course – what happened in Germany is truly horrific – but I’ve always been up for a lightning display. Going off at a tangent here but talking of the growing likelihood of floods because of the climate crisis, I look around at the number of front gardens that have been paved over with inadequate drainage and I worry about what may be around the corner.
The Downe walk today, which occasionally feels a bit mundane, was a joy. Wildflowers spangled the grassy meadows, a song thrush serenaded walkers from a hedgerow and charms of goldfinches passed wittering in transit from field to woods. Spitfires growled through the moist air, seemingly busier than ever whisking people on joyride flights across the now customary airliner-free skies of Kent. Wild marjoram (basically the same as oregano) was flowering along with ragwort, knapweed, vetch, hawksbeard, the odd orchid and trefoil. Butterflies were having a fine old day: the pick of the bunch being peacocks and silver washed fritillaries among the marbled whites and meadow browns.
Sunday update: Another muggy day with storms nearby and another North Downs stroll with a route from Kemsing, courtesy of a good friend, Steve of Sydenham. Bird man Dave, of Tonbridge, was in line to join us but decided that the potential for lightning and thunder made it a risky undertaking. As it happened, the worst storm of the day had already passed once we arrived in Kemsing, and from then on the cloudbursts diverted to the north towards London – causing major flooding in parts, and south towards the High Weald. There were superb views, more Spitfires, and a fine pub at Heaverham – the Chequers. The wonderful meadow of Kemsing Down was a highlight – with plenty of marjoram, thyme, scabious and St John’s wort among the grasses. It’s not a walk we have on this site as yet but I’ll certainly try to conjure something similar – Kemsing station is nearby and could be a good starting point.
View from escarpment to the south from near Kemsing Down
Milder weather again now, little rain and presumably less mud. But bear in mind temperatures are set to veer wildly next week from mild to cold day by day. I haven’t been out on any of the walks for a few weeks now – possibly my longest period of absence for five years. I’m looking forward to seeing the first spring wildflowers, the daffodils at Ightham (pictured below), and in about three weeks the seas of wild garlic and bluebells in woodland on all the walks. First of all there’s blackthorn blossom to enjoy, primroses, wood anenome and violets, among others.
It’s amazing how rapidly the landscape transforms itself from its rather bedraggled and dreary state (it seems like that to me this year anyway) in early March to the rich promise of early April. It somehow surprises me every year. And from 12 April it will be possible to visit pub gardens after the walks – this seems like crazy talk. I hope there are still some pubs to go back to. There are one or two that may struggle to open up at all. It’s a grim old business, a global pandemic. My spring walks this year will be punctuated by regular halts to listen to birdsong and try to pick out various species. It wasn’t so long ago that I added wren to my aural recognition list… laughable that it took so long considering just how distinct and loud the call of that diminutive bird is. For some reason the walk I’m most looking forward to getting to this spring is the Chiddingstone loopespecially if the Castle Inn’s garden is open.
In the meantime I’ve stumbled across some BBC4 walks in Yorkshire that I’ve quite enjoyed – a couple of which I remember doing as a teenager on family holidays. The presenter, Shanaz Gulzar, is affable and doesn’t go on too much and if she starts to get pretentious, she soon thinks better of it. It’s all quite low key and accompanied by superb drone photography. Have a look on the iPlayer.
One of Shanaz’s walks crosses the Strid, a stretch of the River Wharfe that used to strike fear into a great uncle of mine, a local, who used to tell us stories of terrible events in those parts involving drownings and floods. He was extremely old at that point and had suffered the fate of being captured very early in – wait for it – the first world war. In fact as a very young man, perhaps still a teenager, he might have been living in Ypres as a civilian when the Kaiser’s army invaded. He was apparently given some very grisly work details and it was said he never quite recovered from his experiences. Nevertheless, here he was in the mid-1970s telling us kids about the Strid and the perils of trying to cross it. Good old Clifford. Slightly scary but a tremendous character.
Kent walks near London 