Length: 16.5km (10.3m)
Toughness: 2 / 10
Transport: Take the 10:07 from London Bridge to Hever, arriving at 10:49. Return trains from Tonbridge at xx:07, xx:13, xx:37, xx:44. Buy an “Any Permitted” day return to Leigh, Kent (for any explanation see the walk notes)
A lovely walk to the historic village of Penshurst with the 13th century manor house of Penshurst Place for lunch at the Leicester Arms before following the Medway valley to Tonbridge. The construction works to enlarge the Leigh Flood Storage Area might still be going on and some paths might still be closed. There is an easily identifiable diversion around any path closures.
1 comment:
About #15 off the train at Hever, soon stringing out across surprisingly unmuddy (for the Weald in winter) rolling bucolic countryside on a day of #dry-mild-slightly-cloudy weather. We admired long rural views, surmising that many were essentially unchanged since the First World War, if you take the windows out of the oast houses and put a lot more horses in the fields.
As our walk poster had sheepishly confessed at Hever, the Leicester Arms in Penshurst was still undergoing refurbishment, and the Fir Tree House tea rooms being closed for the season, the non-picnickers resorted to the Porcupine Pantry ("Only the finest, freshest porcupines, none of your frozen rubbish") only 100m off the track at Penshurst Place, which provided sandwiches and sausage rolls. And, possibly, soup.
Your reporter decided to pass on the walk to Tonbridge (first walk of any distance since July, courtesy of a torn cartilage and Covid) and walked down to Penshurst station, only to discover there was a replacement bus service to Edenbridge but no timetable. Undaunted, a thumb out produced a lift within minutes right back to my car. Good to be back.
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