This walk follows the Greensand Way all the way from Yalding to Sevenoaks. The route is fairly well waymarked, and so you may find that for whole sections you can dispense with these directions altogether. Note that some signposts can get overgrown by vegetation in summer, however, and at whatever time of year, the waymarking disappears for crucial sections.
Later the way becomes hillier and the Greensand Way climbs up to the lovely moated manor house of Ightham Mote (pronounced “Eye-tam”), a National Trust property whose tea room can be accessed without paying the entrance fee. From there you embark on a particularly lovely section of the Greensand Way, which climbs slowly up the escarpment. The final stretch is across the grounds of Knole House, another fine National Trust property with a tea room.
Trains: Get the 0934 from Charing Cross (London Bridge 1040), changing at Paddock Wood Platform 2 1023 departing platform 3 1033 for Yalding arriving 1040. Frequent trains back from Sevenoaks (fast and slow). Buy a Yalding return.
Lunch: The Kentish Rifleman in Dunks Green (01732 810 727), 9.9km (6.1 miles) into the walk is "a charming and characterful old pub with a menu of simple favourites given a new twist". It has a pleasant garden. It serves food from to 3pm Saturday.
Or the Chaser Inn in Shipbourne (01732 810 360) www.thechaser.co.uk, (which is thus 12km/7.5 miles from the start of the walk).
Tea: Brewhouse Cafe, the National Trust tea room at Knole House, which is thus 19.1km (11.9 miles) into the walk. It is open till 5pm daily, or various options in Sevenoaks.
2 comments:
I think it is London Bridge 9.43 (not 10.40).
Into every life some rain must fall - but it can have the good manners to confine itself to the start and end of the walk. Otherwise today it was w=cloud-breaking-to-sunshine in the afternoon. Relatively good weather by the standards of this summer.
I have usually done this walk in early spring. It was strange to do it with the nettles tall and the brambles encroaching. In places the paths were definitely overgrown and some strimming might be needed. But mostly it will die away once summer is over.
N=16 on this walk, including one visitor from across the sea and one who has not walked for twenty years (some feeble excuse about raising a son…) As usual we got a bit spread out so this account is fairly partial and prejudiced, the more so as the day goes on.
Pubs on this walk are in some flux. The Swan in West Peckham, once a high-falutin gastro joint, is now bedecked with banners imploring us to save it as a community pub. The Kentish Rifleman has added an extension but claims its kitchen is overwhelmed when only a third of its seating is occupied. Someone had kindly booked for four of us, but six of us managed to eat, at a nice sunny outside table. There was some huffing and puffing from the pub about this unwarranted increase in their turnover and we had to wait till our appointed booking time to order. But the food came reasonably quickly once we did.
Near Shipbourne we crossed two vast field of purple. No, not lavender, but tansy-leaved phacelia (google it…), a set-aside plant. We hope this is a new trend in regenerative agriculture as it looked gorgeous.
Whisking past the Chaser we made for Ightham Mote, where we had a nice tea, again in the sunshine. After that the weather went downhill, while we went slowly upwards. We walked the escarpment and through Knole Park under grey skies with a fair bit of rain. Four of us had a drink in Sevenoaks.
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