9.30 train from Victoria - note: not Charing Cross/London Bridge due to engineering works - (10.00 Orpington, 10.09 Sevenoaks), arriving Staplehurst at 10.36
We are on the cusp of bluebell season - probably still a bit early for them - but the morning of this walk passes a huge mile-long wood that has a habit of coming out early, so you never know. Otherwise you will not be short of spring delights: Staplehurst churchyard can be intensely carpetted with lesser celandines at this time of year, there are wood anemone woods both mid morning and beyond Sissinghurst (also some bluebells), and there are usually some lambs frolicking somewhere.
Lunch might be possible at the Bell & Jorrocks in Frittenden after 4.4 miles. There are some recent reviews on Tripadvisor, so it seems to still be in business. This is a somewhat quirky and old-fashioned pub, and can be put out by a large phalanx of walkers turning up all at once, but it has served us well in the past. Food hours may be 12-2-30pm.
Otherwise it is another 2 miles to the Sissinghurst Castle (not actually a castle), which has a large National Trust self-service tea room doing some hot items until about 2.30pm, and sandwiches and cakes after. It is a good place for tea if you had lunch in Frittenden. You could visit the gardens here, which probably look very nice at this time of year. A very late lunch can be had in the Milk House, a gastro pub in Sissinghurst village (1.4 miles after the castle), which does food all afternoon.
This is not a long walk, yet it is amazing how hard it is to persuade people to walk to the end of it. You can get the No 5 bus (ultimate destination Maidstone) from Sissinghurst village back to Staplehurst at 16.43 and 17.43, but it is only another 1.6 miles to the very pretty town of Cranbrook, from where the same bus leaves at 16.35 and 17.35. All Cranbrook's cafes shut early, but the George Hotel in the heart of the town is well-placed for an end of walk drink, and does do tea.
The bus gets to Staplehurst station approach (after the village, which is about a mile up the road) at 56 past the hour, with a good margin to catch the 18 past train back to London (there is also one at 48 past). There is a big Sainsbury's next to the bus stop if you want to get something for the train.
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N=16 on this walk, a happy crew, enjoying a w=mostly-sunny day, which is to say it was sunny till about 3pm, then high cloud.
Though I say so myself, being its creator, this is a glorious spring walk, packed with signs of the season - drifts of cuckoo flowers, intense patches of celandines, orange tip and speckled wood butterflies, and lambs in the field. There were wood anemones too - in particular great carpets of them after Sissinghurst. Slightly past their best in places, but still very good.
As for Maplehurst Wood, the star attraction, it did not disappoint. A reliably early bluebell wood, it was about three quarters out. Liberally dotted with stitchwort, it made a very nice picture.
In Frittenden seven of us went to the pub. They were having a beer festival and only doing bar food, but the latter, served in little boxes, was not at all bad. Not being a beer connoisseur, I chose an ale at random from the extensive list and very nice it was too. What a pity I forgot to record the name.
A big swathe of arable land just after Frittenden was fallow last year and covered with yellow charlock flowers. This year it is grassy, still dotted with charlock and has larks singing over it. I wonder what happened to the farmer? The hornbeam wood beyond was awash with gorgeous new green foliage.
A bunch of us had tea at the National Trust cafe at Sissinghurst. Very pleasant to sit there at an outside table in the by now somewhat hazy sun. Several opted to look at the gardens, while five of us forged on towards Cranbrook. We got there in time for a second tea in the comfortable George Inn, and then got the 17.37 bus back to Staplehurst. Two more of the group joined us there and we made a chatty party on the 18.18 train, discussing Jane Austen, plays and….other things (I forget).
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