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Dank you very much 2024!
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Dank you very much 2024!

Happy Christmas and New Year everyone! Great to see so many people use Kent Walks Near London for their end-of-year outings once again – particularly as yet again the festive season has failed to produce those ‘crisp’, ‘frosty’, ‘bracing’ walks the Sunday supplements are so fond of telling us about. But we plough on regardless… learning to enjoy the dankness and the shades of grey, the browns and blacks of the Kent countryside at this time of year. Well we would have ploughed on if it hadn’t been for horrendous bouts of cold and flu that has grounded even this most militant of militant Kent walkers. I’ve barely managed a foot-foray in the past couple of months.

Yesterday, though, I took on the mighty High Elms loop – adventure is guaranteed once you’ve got past the social dog walkers, many of whom don’t seem to get more than few hundred yards from the car park. I really enjoy the woods on this walk, one huge holm oak particularly commanding attention on the quiet side of the loop away from the High Elms centre. There are also pines, and some larches, and an unlovely but wildlife-friendly scrubby field on the opposite side of Shire Lane that always attracts kestrels (perhaps owls too, late in the dusk) hunting for mice etc. Birds were thin on the ground. I heard a thrush, but other than a solitary kestrel and the usual robins, great tits and parakeets there was nothing to report. I thought I heard an owl, but I suspect it was just some bloke putting on a silly voice while calling his dog.

Photographs: A kestrel wheels away after hovering over the scrubby field between Farnborough and High Elms; winter dusk in the woods; one of High Elms’ many paths; a sweet chestnut in late November at Lullingstone’s Beechen Woods.

The area around the Beeche centre and cafe at High Elms – the old Lubbock gardens – are great to explore, especially with kids. The walk is pretty gentle, with no steep sections and it’s easy to shorten it if you need to. I needed to as dusk and a bout of sneezing settled in. Parking in the car park at High Elms is ideal but it gets very busy, which is why my route suggests parking in Farnborough village near The Woodman or the church and starting/ending there.

Farnborough village and High Elms circular
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Farnborough village and High Elms circular

Here’s a ‘new’, pleasant two-hour, four-mile stroll that fits in to the Downe/Cudham/Knockholt suite of walks; ie, it’s on the chalk North Downs and not too far from Bromley – in fact it’s still within Bromley borough (about 30 mins’ drive from Forest Hill, 15 mins bus from Orpington Station, 20 mins from Bromley South). It’s quite a similar walk to the High Elms Estate route described in this informative leaflet but there are differences – my route is a mile and a half longer, goes further to the west initially and stays deeper in the woods in the long stretch to the High Elms visitor centre (Beeche).

Here are full instructions for the walk.

I’ll write it up and devote a page to it this week at some point but meanwhile here’s an Ordnance Survey GPX map for the route, and, below, a Google map of it. We started from close to the church in Farnborough village (Kent) but you could also start from the High Elms visitor centre car park (free, the last time I checked). If you’re not driving, you can take the 358 bus to Farnborough village from Bromley South, Orpington, Crystal Palace, Shortlands, Kent House, Eden Park, Anerley, Clock House stations etc (it’s a long and twisting route from Crystal Palace though!). The closest railway station is Orpington, just a mile or so from Farnborough village.

It’s not a spectacular walk with awe-inspiring vistas, unlike say the One Tree Hill, Ide Hill or Fackenden routes, but there’s some lovely woodland, views over shallow valleys, amazing conifers in the Lubbock estate next to Shire Lane at High Elms and lots of bluebells, orchids (pictured in Cuckoo Wood, lead image) and birds at various times of the year. Right now it’s a bit bleak of course but there’s still much to enjoy. The ‘home stretch’ as you reach Cuckoo Wood then get nearer the cafe and nature centre (called Beeche) at High Elms is quite busy with dog walkers, as are the initial fields after starting the walk in Tye Lane. In between though, it’s very quiet. There are no stiles so suitable for a hardy push chair (I think!). There are three roads to cross; the first – Shire Lane – is a notorious rat run where for some reason cars are often driven recklessly fast, so take care.

Pictured above in dull winter conditions: 1 Lubbock’s conifer plantation dating from mid-19th century; 2 the High Elms area near the cafe is popular with dog walkers; 3 A holm oak, an evergreen oak from southern Europe, offers winter cover in High Elms’s western woods; 4 New growth shoots from a fallen giant sequoia in the western woods close to the High Elms ‘nature field’; 5 Looking bleak in winter, this field close to the start of our walk is excellent for small mammals and their predators such as kestrel, owls and buzzards; 6 Church of St Giles the Abbot, Farnborough, has a nave dating from the 12th century; 7 Woodland meadow in High Elms woods – from April this patch is alive with wildflowers; 8 pine trees near the church at Farnborough

This walk was first tried on 7 January 2024 after weeks of rain. We revisited the following week in slightly better weather hence the appearance of blue sky in a couple of photos. The mud wasn’t too terrible by 14 January. The chalk beneath the thin soil has done its job well draining the water so it’s probably a safer bet for having less mud than the nearby Cudham walk.

If you have children it‘d probably be better to start and finish the walk at the High Elms car park so they can enjoy hide and seek and a picnic in the beautifully decayed old gardens of the Lubbock manor house (burned down in 1967 possibly by a discarded cigarette).

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Confined for now, but keep your eyes open

In my wildest dreams did I ever think when I set up this website that I’d be advising people not to take a walk. But current circumstances, like something from a disaster movie, dictate that really we shouldn’t go out into the countryside for our hiking fix. My last walk was in the Ashdown Forest (yes, I know, East Sussex… not Kent) on Sunday 22 March. And yes it was very busy with an atmosphere more of Easter holidays than a national crisis. It’s a beautiful place to be on a fine day but I kicked myself for suggesting it; there was always a high risk it’d be busy. So to reiterate the government’s advice:

  • Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (where this absolutely cannot be done from home)
  • Stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people
  • Wash your hands as soon as you get home

People should not meet friends or family members who do not live with them. Gatherings of more than two people (excluding people who live together) will be banned.

Of course the word ‘absolutely’ is up for debate and ‘who do not live with them’ is not exactly clear either given the comings and goings of adulty ‘kids’. It’s difficult to stay two metres away in a shop too, especially when the brave shop staff decide to check your receipt. But we get the gist. The full government guidance on social distancing is here.

All our sympathy and concern must be directed at those who are elderly, frail, have underlying health conditions and mobility problems. And then there are the self-employed, from musicians, actors to carpenters and yoga instructors, who’ve seen their incomes disappear overnight and little mechanism in place to compensate them at least in the short term. Many have pointed to the plight of the homeless, those living in abusive relationships, in poor quality housing among others. These are tough times.

Garden and street birdwatching

Goldfinch on my battered old seed feeder

Those of us lucky enough to have gardens might enjoy a spot of very local birdwatching: to that end, here’s my latest piece for Guardian Travel, which leans on the great experience, skill and knowledge of my friends Steve Gale and Dave, of these pages. Just prior to that I wrote a short piece on the Ightham Mote estate, also for Guardian Travel, as part of a round-up of National Trust gardens and parklands that at the time were remaining open. I guess the estate is still open seeing as it’s not fenced in but the NT has closed all its gardens now. Maybe this year the bluebells will only be enjoyed by true locals, not us more inner suburbanites.

If there’s any consolation to be had, it’s that local pollution levels have fallen markedly and we can hear birdsong now the whine of jets has disappeared. But I can’t wait for this to be over so we can all get out there (not all at once of course).

Update: Monday 6 April

In the past week I’ve written another piece for the Guardian around birds and wildlife, this time around watching webcams and using social media to deepen our understanding. An inspiration for this was the excellent Facebook (I know, I’m not a huge fan either) page and live show set up by Chris Packham and Meghan McCubbin called the Self Isolating Bird Club. In researching the piece I had a long chat with another Springwatch presenter, Michaela Strachan, who spoke to me from her house in South Africa, where she too is in lockdown. She was as delightful to talk to as you’d expect from her television appearances. The article is here.