June 7, 2018 by ammcculloch49

Lake, fields, woods, birds – the 2.5 mile Bough Beech walk

Another ‘new’ walk, the 17th for this website. This is a quiet one-hour stroll without any strenuous bits, not good for dogs (because of farms and potential livestock) or pushchairs (unless very dry). It requires a car, there not being any rail stations or bus services realistically within reach. The Kent Wildlife Trust centre was supposed to be a feature, but this is closing (bird hides will remain open) and being converted into an educational centre, and visitors can no longer use its car park.

But now the good news: it’s a charming little stroll, with good views of the reservoir and its often spectacular bird life, a pocket or two of very bird-rich woods and the interesting Bore Place with its lovely old house, used as an organic farm, events venue and educational centre. It’s close to the Ide Hill (two miles) and Hever/Chiddingstone (four miles) walks and not that far from Knole Park/One Tree Hill (five miles) so can be done as part of a big day out. It ends with a stretch along the reservoir next to the very quiet lane on its north-eastern side. Anyway, here it is. Also, here’s my blog post about the frustration of trying to find a route around the lake – one of the things that prompted me to find this walk.

Bough Beech reservoir

May 27, 2018 by ammcculloch49

Chiddingstone again… with angry clouds

Once again off to Chiddingstone, this time without birding maestro Dave. But saw my first two bullfinches of the year, plus very large slow worm (too fast for me to take pic of however), skylarks and cuckoo. Plus the best variety of dragonflies – some real beasts – I’ve ever seen on a walk, perhaps brought out by the number of winged insects after the huge storm last nght. Some awesome cumulus nimbus forming beyond north London (Channel 4 news’ weatherforecaster Liam Dutton reckons this storm was the one that wrought temporary havoc to Buckinghamshire yesterday evening). The cloud tops of this storm reached 40,000ft so everyone who saw it from Kent and Surrey thought it was much closer than it actually was.

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April 10, 2018 by ammcculloch49

Find a Kent walk near London that suits you

Here’s a map of all the walks on this site so far. Click on the pointers to take you to descriptions of the walks online or in printable pdf format. Alternatively, use the walk tabs at the top of this page.

The best walks on this site for public transport, if you live in SE London are:

Best for public transport: Chislehurst/Petts Wood walk (13): direct train to Chislehurst/Petts Wood/Bickley stations from Brixton/Hither Green/Catford/Herne Hill/West Dulwich/Peckham Rye/Nunhead. For the Shoreham/Eynsford and Otford routes (walks 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 14, 16) there are trains direct to the starts of the walks on Thameslink services between London Blackfriars and Sevenoaks (stopping at Peckham Rye, Nunhead, Catford, Bellingham, Bromley South etc). Trains are relatively frequent and take about 30 minutes from, say, Catford to Otford. Pubs in Shoreham and Eynsford well placed for any delays or cancellations!
So-so for transport: Downe (walk 1): closest route to SE London but involves a (fairly frequent) 25-min bus ride – 146 from Bromley South station
OK for transport: Knole Park (walk 11) – you’ll have to walk from Sevenoaks station (good rail services to Sevenoaks station on Thameslink – see above – or Charing Cross line (Hither Green etc) for nearly a mile to the leisure centre and enter Knole from there, joining the walk as per instructions and map.
Bit of a stretch but do-able: Hever (walk 9) actually has a station, on the London Bridge line via East Croydon, so quite easy from Forest Hill, Brockley etc if you plan ahead. The walk starts at Hever Castle, 1 mile from the station but there’s a path that will take you there from the station.
Not so accessible: Sevenoaks routes (walks 4, 6, 7): can take train to Sevenoaks station on Thameslink or Charing Cross line (Hither Green etc), but then a taxi ride – Ide Hill is about 4 miles from the station; One Tree Hill about 3 miles (also quite close to Hildenborough station).
Car only, although…: I think Chiddingstone is definitely best by car. But, you can take the train to Hildenborough or Edenbridge and get a taxi (more details on walk’s page). Westerham/Chartwell is best with a car, though again bus from Bromley is possible (246), as is taxi from Sevenoaks station.

Always check ‘live departures’ online for trains – service disruption is quite the thing these days you know.

Best for views

One Tree Hill, Ide Hill, Otford circular via Romney St, Westerham/Chartwell, Shoreham’s mystery eastern valleys, Eynsford/Lullingstone. Oh… actually all of ’em.

Best pubs on the walks – click here

My walks

April 3, 2018 by ammcculloch49

Another walk added – Westerham circular

A lovely jaunt south through woods and hidden valleys, eventually ending up overlooking Winston Churchill’s beloved Chartwell and a view to the Weald beyond (pictured). Then slowly turns back north to head through the old deciduous woods of Hosey Common and new conifer plantations before re-entering Westerham. Check it out

Autumnal weald view from Mariners Hill, Kent

April 1, 2018 by ammcculloch49

A stroll closer to home…

If the abysmal weather puts you off travelling out of town for a walk, but the local park bores you rigid, I suggest Beckenham Place Park and Petts Wood for a stroll this Easter. Plenty of great woodland, only a few minutes’ drive from Forest Hill/Lewisham; a great chance for some fresh-ish air close at hand. Beckenham has a good cafe in the mansion; Petts Wood (a bit further out) has ample pubs dotted around it. Below are two pictures from yesterday late afternoon in Beckenham.

Beckenham Place Park mansion with a bunker from the rapidly disappearing old golf course

Sunshine at last … A view down a former golf fairway at Beckenham Place Park

March 30, 2018 by ammcculloch49

Wet Easter

An extraordinary amount of rain falling in north-west Kent at the moment (Good Friday), but it should relent by tomorrow, with the possibility of a little afternoon sunshine (and a shower or two). Sunday will be mainly dry but cloudy. Monday is pretty nailed on to be another stinker with heavy rain all day. So a rather disappointing Easter weekend for walking. Even if Saturday and Sunday are dryish the mud will be pretty horrific and temperatures on the low side. It seems spring has got no further than being a hint. Oh well. Here’s what it should look like:

Blackthorn blossom on One Tree Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent

December 28, 2017 by ammcculloch49

Hoo peninsula walk at Cliffe, north Kent

A lovely piece by Carol Donaldson in the Guardian at the Christmas weekend drew my attention to this area just east of Gravesend. It’s only an hour’s drive from, say, Brockley (potentially less if you can get to the A2 more quickly than I did today) and 40 minutes by train from Lewisham (direct to Higham on the Gillingham route). You can walk direct (about 2.5 miles from Higham station) to the marshes RSPB reserve at Cliffe Pools or get the 133 bus. The walk I did starts at Cliffe village on the little chalk ridge above the marshes, right by 13th-century St Helen’s Church and heads west, reaching the sea wall before returning through lagoons to Cliffe. The churchyard could be where Pip came across Magwitch in Great Expectations (it might be that the children’s graves at nearby Cooling is where this was imagined) and Charles Dickens’ daughter was married nearby at St Mary’s, Lower Higham. More recently, the marshes served as paddy fields in Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick’s Vietnam movie made in the late 1980s.

The beauty of the area is that you can just walk off into the marshes and make for the sea wall – there’s lots of interesting historical features including a beached boat. Otherwise there’s big skies, a lot of birds (the plaintive calls of waders accompany you throughout), ships gliding on the river beyond the wall, timeless atmosphere … I’ll add details of the route I took soon, as well as the Westerham-Chartwell route. Yet another place near London that takes you to another time seemingly hundreds of miles away. Some pix…

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December 17, 2017 by ammcculloch49

Soft light on a December walk in Kent

There’s no doubt about it. Winter walks aren’t always particularly uplifting. Views are subdued and less vibrant. The oranges and reds of autumn have gone, to be replaced by toned-down browns and greens. There’s mud, damp and murkiness that can make you want to flee the country. But the sky picks its moments to remedy everything; pink and orange sunsets, swathes of deep azure; the rush towards dusk bathing ancient Kent rural scenes in yellow and grey light. There are times when you feel that our little pokey-out county is in tune with the timeless far north; Iceland, Norway, Lapland… maybe the Vikings who settled here felt most at home on these dark cold days. Am I being pretentious? Stop me if I am. I’ll stop then.

Here are some pictures from early afternoon on December 16, 2017, on the high-level Meenfield woods walk, to the west of Shoreham and the little valley separating Meenfield and Andrews woods (an extension to walks 2 and 8).

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October 28, 2017 by ammcculloch49

Special trees on these Kent walks

Of the countless arboreal delights of north-west Kent there are a few standout trees. There’s the tall, straight oak on the Ightam Mote path, the enormous yew near the sandstone holloway’s entrance on the Hever walk, the high, buzzard-friendly larches encountered on the Shoreham eastern valleys walk, just about every tree in Knole…

But few are more striking – or precarious – than this beech growing out of the greensand escarpment at One Tree Hill, which walkers pass on their way towards, or back from, Ightam Mote. The picture below doesn’t do it full justice: because the camera is pointing down, it’s hard to appreciate the gradient this amazing tree is growing out of. Let’s hope it lasts a while yet.

The amazing tree growing out of the escarpment at One Tree Hill

October 8, 2017 by ammcculloch49

No red October – yet. And a giant kestrel

Walks this weekend (October 7-8) in Downe and Darent Valley revealed shades of green rather than oranges and reds. Is it because of the relative warmth at the moment? Just feels as if the countryside just wants to hang on to summer and its leaves at the moment. Look a bit closer though and there’s plenty of scarlet in the form of rose hips. Apparently they are very edible and full of vitamin C.

One of the largest kestrels I’ve ever seen is currently hunting around the north-western (Eynsford end) of Lullingstone – a spectacular, silent bird. It must have been a female – they are noticeably bigger than the males. But even so, a real whopper. And on the Downe cycle yesterday we came across a red kite floating and flopping low down. It had probably spotted a dead thing.

Meanwhile, the Biggin Hill two-seater Spitfire was incredibly busy on joy flights. During our two-hour cycle it made three sorties, heading out to east Kent over Toys Hill and back over Shoreham. A great sight and sound. Few other aircraft up, probably due to the stiff breeze. Some pictures from Lullingstone/Eynsford today…

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