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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.

Saturday 8 July 2017

Hildenborough to Tonbridge - gentle Kentish countryside with two nice pubs

SWC walk 219 - Hildenborough to Tonbridge
Length: 13.3km (8.2 miles) or 21.5km (13.4 miles)
Toughness: 2 out of 10

10.00 train from Charing Cross (10.03 Waterloo East, 10.08 London Bridge, 10.26 Orpington) to Hildenborough, arriving 10.42.

Buy a day return to Tonbridge.

For walk directions click here.

This is an easy saunter across a gentle corner of Kent which takes you to a choice of two lunch pubs, both familiar from other walks. One is the lovely Chaser Inn in Shipbourne with its lovely garden by the church; the other is the more homely Kentish Rifleman in Dunk's Green.

In the afternoon you come to Hadlow, whose strange tower (a 19th century folly) dominates the landscape but is frustratingly hard to get close to. Hadlow's other attraction is Broadview Gardens, free to enter, created by students of the adjacent horticultural college. It has a tea room, with nice outside tables. There are also two tea places in the village open to 5pm, though I have never tried either.

If all those cream cakes have robbed you of your will to carry on, buses run from Hadlow to Tonbridge railway station at 16, 36 and 56 past till 18.16, then 18.43, 19.11, 19.41, 20.11, 20.41... This is the 13.3km (8.2 mile) version of the walk

Or fortified by tea you can continue the walk to Tonbridge (the 21.5km/13.4 mile version of the walk), across flat fields and along the banks of the River Medway.

Trains back from Tonbridge are very frequent: just turn up at the station and one will be imminent. T=3.219

1 comment:

Bill S said...

n=22 departed from Hildenborough station. A w=hot-and-humid-morning-becoming-sunnier-and-hotter as the day wore on. Most of us opted for lunch at the Kentish Trooper where we sat in the garden. Despite initially being somewhat overwhelmed by a sudden influx of walkers and locals, the pub coped admirably, delivering our food with commendable speed and good grace. After a longish break (it was that sort of day) 15 or so of us set out together on the afternoon leg. Five(?) decided to finish at Hadlow and were last seen heading for the Broadview Gardens tea room. The rest of us decided to press on to Tonbridge where one of our number, acting on a hunch found an excellent little tea room (Beyond the Grounds - http://beyondthegrounds.com/ ) overlooking the river and castle on the other side of Big Bridge. The two staff here dealt with our incessant demands for tea (in copious quantities), cake (very nice) and hot and cold water with good humour. Thus refreshed we departed for the train back to the London.