July 18, 2026 by ammcculloch49

Evening sun walks – pick Shoreham!

Why didn’t I write this a month ago? Anyway, I am now. The heat is on. Obviously there are negatives to this extended dry, hot period for our water supplies, agriculture and some of our trees (I’ve been checking on our nearest street trees which are still pretty young and thirsty). But our countryside has taken on a drowsy, hazy quality that’s best enjoyed in the evening. My advice is this: take the Thameslink train out to Shoreham (in Kent, not -on-Sea in W Sussex!!!) from a station on the Denmark Hill-Bromley South-Sevenoaks line at between 5 and 6pm. Step out from the station and head up the track almost opposite on the Fackenden Down or Eastern Valley (take secateurs!) walks. Complete the walk in 2.5 hours and head to the Samuel Palmer pub for refreshment then catch the 9.32pm or 10.02pm train back to London.

View across head of Darent Valley, July evening 2026
Sunset in the Darent Valley at Shoreham
Nearing the pub, in the Darent Valley
Scabious, Austin Spring
Nearing Romney St on the Fackenden walk summer evening July
Evening view from Fackenden Down, July 2026
Scabious flowers July 2026, Austin Spring, near Shoreham

What’s particularly wonderful about these walks just now is the spate of wildflowers. Namely, scabious, marjoram, oregano, wild carrot, knapweed, hawks-beard and so on. The extent of scabious coverage on the Fackenden route right now is amazing, particularly in meadows of Magpie Bottom and Austin Spring; no doubt it’s the same on the Eastern Valleys route. We were amazed. We also heard yellowhammer calling and watched a kestrel gliding and wheeling around. I usually do the Fackenden route in reverse, so starting with the steps, so only get to the second wonderful view at Point 4. The North Downs escarpment above Chevening appeared silvery in the dreamlike light, the meadows seemed to float like gossamer in the warm air. Beauty was everywhere. When we got to the pub 80s music was booming out – Whitney Houston, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper. It was great fun.

Allow 10 minutes to comfortably make the train from the Samuel Palmer; I’ve been caught out before if I try to cut it finer.

June 28, 2026 by ammcculloch49

A summer of Kent walks lies before us

Lazy days, slow walks, plenty of water (and pub stops), the quiet humming of bees and scuttle of lizards … it’s a great time for a Kent walk near London now the intense heat has been turned down.

For the first time in years I have failed to take a Kent walk of a weekend. The energy-sapping heat of the past week has left me enfeebled and lazy, though as I write I’m preparing to play tennis – something that feels a bit daunting just now. Sleep has been elusive, especially when the early hours are given over to thunder and lightning. The World Cup has been quite useful when looking for a way of drifting off – not really a comment on the football, which has been above par, but an expression of admiration for its ability to trigger sleep and keep your mind off just how sweaty you are.

On the other hand a trip into London on Friday night to meet old friends proved joyous despite the tropical heat. The atmosphere was infectious, the absence of jackets and jeans liberating, and the tube train from Charing Cross up to Warren St nothing like as overheated as feared.

Recent walks have included a longer take on the Down walk, taking in Darwin’s orchid meadows on the slopes east of Christmas Tree Farm; a lovely foray to Bough Beech in search of spotted flycatchers (birder Dave heavily implicated in that one); a trip to Knepp in West Sussex; and the aforementioned brush with the Long Distance Walking Association masochists in Oldbury. Each walk was magnificent, though do watch out for ticks now we’re all wearing shorts. My friend Steve found one on his lower leg after Downe. They are encouraged by deer apparently, with herds being particularly frequently spotted in the Downe, Cudham, Knockholt areas.

Knepp, West Sussex
Cirrus at Fackenden Down, June, 2019
Meadow near Hever, June
View from near Ide Hill looking over the Weald of Kent

The month has also seen me venture on a long weekend jaunt in Lisbon – one of my favourite cities anywhere. Such a bright, breezy, colourful, diverse, cultural and optimistic place, with great views, buildings, transport, museums etc. And beaches too, beyond Belem, which you can get to on the train easily enough.

Sorry not to keep the newsletters up. I had more than 1,500 subscribers, which was brilliant, but once the provider started exponentially increasing its fees I just sort of thought “sod this”.

With the heat you hardly need advising that shady walks are best, so once again I commend Hosey Hill, Cudham, Oldbury, One Tree Hill and Petts Wood as particularly woody walks (see links above) but to be fair you won’t encounter scorpions, mirages or get lost in the sand dunes as you gasp “water” on any of these walks.

March 24, 2026 by ammcculloch49

Early spring flowers on Kent walks near London

I write this on a dark Tuesday night with rain, driven by an angry, unpredictable wind, lashing down on to the roof of my conservatory. My little electric radiator is working overtime as I listen to the elements filling the sky above me. But I’m here to write about the onset of spring, about how the Kent walks near London have largely dried out rather well and how early bluebells, wood anemones, primroses and celandine are spangling woods and meadows with vivid colours. I also want to mention how great the blackthorn bushes and trees look this year. The snow-white flowers of blackthorn, the stalwart of early spring blossom, are a vital source of nectar and pollen for bees in spring. The Woodland Trust website says its foliage is a food plant for the caterpillars of many moths, including the lackey, magpie, swallow-tailed and yellow-tailed and that it’s also used by the black and brown hairstreak butterflies. Its thorny, dense thickets are great for birds to nest in too and of course its gorgeous sloe berries in autumn are a rich source of sustenance for a variety of creatures.

Blackthorn is seen on all the walks; take a close look, it’s definitely one of those sights we take for granted but the more you look, the more you are rewarded.

Yes, all this happens every year but it seems so miraculous each time, as long as you don’t forget to look. And right now we need to look, given the gloom visited on us by the horror of unwanted wars and fears over our livelihoods.

Early spring at Romney Street, Eastern Valleys walk
Primrose in Scord wood on the Ide Hill walk
Blackthorn on One Tree Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent
Wood anenomes on Fackenden Down
Cuckoo flowers and bluebells near Bore Place, Bough Beech
Celandine on the Fackenden Down walk
Magpie Bottom view, late March
Primroses on the chalk downs of Kent at Austin Spring, near Shoreham
Blackthorn on Fackenden Down
Wood anemones and bluebells
Colours of late March
Blackthorn clump between Austin Spring and Romney Street, Fackenden walk

March 5, 2026 by ammcculloch49

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, March
Bough Beech nature reserve, March
View from Fackenden Down, March 2023
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.

February 16, 2026 by ammcculloch49

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

November 10, 2025 by ammcculloch49

Autumnal tones on the Kent walks

Autumn in these parts is spectacular. I know people talk in hushed tones about the colours of New England, Canada and Italy’s Apennines in the fall, but really the effect is pretty similar wherever there are trees! Once again, don’t overlook what’s on one’s doorstep in favour of an expensive and laborious trip. The November views of the Weald from Wilmot’s or Mariner’s Hill, or across the Darent Valley and the beech woods of Lullingstone are undeniably amazing. The ever-changing wide skies of Kent are a big factor in teasing out colours and optimising certain tones with the lower sun offering saturated reds, yellows and pinks. And greys, let’s not gloss over.

What’s surprising to me looking at the photos below is how green the countryside is in the Penshurst photo compared with those from elsewhere, yet it was taken on 1 November one week before this weekend’s Hosey walk, and a week after the trip to Shoreham represented here. Strange… could be sunshine and time of day I suppose.

I have lots of great autumn photos from over the past nine years of operating this website. But a selection from the past two weeks (mostly – the Downe and Ide Hill photos are from previous years) is enough to make the point – autumn is a terrific time for a hike on any of the routes at KWNL.

Mariners Hill view across the Weald on the Hosey walk
Sunbeams and silhouettes looking west from Mariner’s Hill on the Hosey/Westerham walks
Tower Hill, near Westerham, on the Hosey/Westerham walks
A view across the Darent Valley looking east from between Eynsford and Shoreham.
Infant Darent River from the Hosey path
Near Penshurst on the Chiddingstone walk
Mariners Hill
Country lane near Romney Street
View from Shoreham station bridge
Mariners Hill view again
Wilmot’s Hill, One Tree Hill figure of 8 walk, at dusk
Downe walk
A deer in Downe, autumn
Fackenden Down view
Start of Ide Hill walk. Autumn
Classic autumnal Kent view from Emmett’s Garden looking across Bough Beach to Chiddingstone and the Weald
Ide Hill field, dusk, autumn
Wilmot’s Hill, late October 2025. One Tree Hill – Ightham walks

October 13, 2025 by ammcculloch49

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.

September 14, 2025 by ammcculloch49

September walks

September and October are two of my favourite months for a stroll. Somehow the light seems sharper, the cloudscapes change more quickly, birds and other creatures are on the move and colourful, mysterious fungi appears. There may be mud to contend with of course so a comfortable pair of wellies may come into their own before too long. I wouldn’t rule out a return of summer yet though, just because it’s raining ferociously as I write. All of the walks sparkle at this time of year but I particularly enjoy the woody One Tree Hill routes, Oldbury and Petts Wood in September. Just an atmosphere thing really.

Talking of cloudscapes, my walk at Downe on Saturday was set to a backdrop of dramatic shower clouds. I was happy to see the worst of them pass to the north, only to discover with some alarm that it had grown a nasty looking limb that was heading my way. My alarm doubled on seeing three forks of lightning flicker to earth. Amid hailstones the size of… er… dried lentils, my swift walk turned into an undignified dash across the final field back to the car in fear of a big flash.

1 Looks far away…
2 Something coming…
3 Oh my gawd…

June 29, 2025 by ammcculloch49

Take secateurs on your Kent walk!

Things have got a bit overgrown on some of the more neglected paths. Despite the lack of rain, brambles have been getting busy and are giving their full attention to any bare legs they come across. Nettles too. The brilliant Eastern Valleys of Shoreham walk is the worse offender here… along the field edge coming up to point 3 in particular. That path is little used and things have got a little wild (there could well be an alternative route on a path within the woods, not along the field but I’m a little hazy on the details, it’s hot and I’ve been watching Glasto). I say secateurs, but a sickle or shears wouldn’t go amiss – whatever your implement, it’ll help keep things civilised. Obvs, don’t go crazy, just a little snip here and there to clear your path, we don’t want anything apart from brambles, the odd nettle and dogwood being snipped. Even on my brief Bough Beech stroll today I was assailed by prickles while on the pavement walking back towards the nature reserve (the kingfisher was showing well if you must know). Still, I survived; I always seem to, whatever terrible hazards the Kent walks near London throw at me.

June 20, 2025 by ammcculloch49

Not too hot to trot in Kent

When the temperature hits 30C a lot of us prefer to sit in the shade, sip a drink, maybe head to the park cafe, try to keep cool. But Kent Walkers Near London are rather like mad dogs and Englishmen – they go out in the midday sun and hit the trails of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge and anything in between. My cut off is closer to 35C when it comes to walking – I once did a few miles in Joshua Tree national park in the Mojave desert (not a Kent walk near London) at about 38C. It was great! No problemo. Just bring water and don’t get too lost and you’ll be fine! In fact doing the Kent walks are a better way of keeping cool than hanging in SE London – there’s usually a breeze on the downs and trees for shade. Plus they’ll be butterflies and wildflowers to enjoy. And unlike Joshua Tree there’s a decent pub never much more than a mile away. In terms of distance, as long as you’re feeling good there’s no problem with doing a walk up to 6 miles in high temperatures. One little tip though: if you do the Eastern Valleys route (quite taxing on a hot day as the valley kind of magnifies the heat) take secateurs as one of the paths gets overgrown a bit at this time of year and you don’t want want those pristine bare legs to be ripped to shreds! Enough. Enjoy!!