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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Wednesday 22 February 2017

Wednesday Walk - Knockholt Circular

Length:  19.6 km (12.2 mi)
Ascent/Descent:  390m
Net Walking Time:  4 ½ - 5 hours
Toughness:  5 out of 10 
  
Take the 10.06 Sevenoaks train from  Charing Cross (W’loo East 10.09, LBG 10.14, Hither Green 10.24, …, Orpington 10.43), arrives Knockholt 10.49. [If you miss the 10.06, take the 10.15 Hastings train to Orpington and you have 3 minutes there to change trains…] Knockholt is within London Transport Zone 6, so a one-day off-peak Travelcard is an option.  
Return trains are on xx.12 and xx.42

Despite its starting point being within London Travelcard Zone 6, this is a completely rural walk, passing through a succession of lovely open fields, and through a number of woods. After lunch there is the opportunity to visit Down House, the home of Charles Darwin, the naturalist.

This walk has not been posted for 2 ½ years, and not been walk-checked for 6 years, we’ll take the opportunity…

Lunch is either at the The Queens Head (food to 16.00) or at The George & Dragon  (food all day), both in  Downe (8.1 km/5.0 mi).
For tea, it’s either Arthur's Coffee Shop & Restaurant in Rushmore Hill (2.9 km from the end, open to 16.45), 
or The Rose and Crown in Halstead (2.5 km from the end, 500m off route and under new management, now with more emphasis on Real Ales apparently).
For walk directions, map, height profile, some photos, a video and gpx/kml files click here.t=swc.7

Next Week: Book 2 Walk 12 ab Guildford Circular with Hog's Back Start

1 comment:

Walker said...

N=20 on this walk including one late starter and one who parked somewhere and was with us at lunch and for a while after. There was a brief flicker of sun as we got off the train, but alas, it was not to be. Instead we had w=drizzle-with-increasing-showers, the latter after lunch. On the plus side it was mild and really nothing like as muddy as it ought to have been.

Springlike signs were there for the sharp-eyed and eared. I was almost certainly the only person to be excited by seeing dog's mercury shoots in the woods but a large flock of bleating and very pregnant ewes being led to the lambing shed promised happier times to come. Larks also sang along with song thrushes and one blackbird.

The George and Dragon in Downe was surprised to get a dozen of us for lunch - "All I served yesterday was one cheese sandwich" the landlady was heard to say. But the kitchen still produced tasty food with decent despatch and at rock bottom prices. Some also tried the Queen's Head, though if its most famous local (one N Farage Esq) was there, I do not know.

In the afternoon I got left behind and so took a short cut to tea. Five or six others penetrated the many zones of Cooling's Nursery to join me in its very nice cafe. Later some tried both the Cock Inn and the Rose and Crown in Halstead. Both are locals pubs, though not unfriendly. The R&C is a 1970s time warp but had good beer, the cognoscenti tell me. A nun at the next table seemed to be enjoying it too. The four of us who sampled its wares walked in the dark across the golf course to get the 18.43 train, the extraordinary glow of London on the horizon producing an effect a little like pale moonlight.