Length: 14.2 km (8.8 miles)
Toughness: 2 out of 10
Thameslink service from Peterborough to Horsham, with stops at:
St Pancras: 09-45 hrs
Blackfriars: 09-53 hrs
London Bridge: 10-00 hrs
Arrive East Croydon: 10-15 hrs Change trains
Leave East Croydon: 10-22 hrs Southern service from East Croydon to Uckfield
Arrive Hever: 10-49 hrs
Return
Leigh to London Bridge: fast services, changing at Tonbridge, at 35 mins past the hour PLUS 16-00 hrs
Stopping services, changing at Redhill, at 05 mins past the hour
Rail ticket: buy a day return to Leigh (Kent) Any Route Permitted
Although this walk has had several Saturday and Sunday outings in the past year, it is many-a-moon since SWC mid-week walkers had a similar pleasure, so let's rectify that today.
Along the interesting route through Kent's lovely countryside we pass two castles, one stately home and three villages, with the Rivers Eden and Medway providing you with today's water feature.
Lunch is best taken in the village of Chiddingstone at the historic Castle Inn, or nearby at the Tulip Tree Tearooms. If you can keep hunger pangs at bay for a further hour, then the lunch stop for you is the pleasant Leicester Arms in Penshurst.
After lunch the walk continues past Penshurst Place then onto the Eden Valley Walk, in places beside the River Medway, and on into Leigh. The pub near the railway station may not have re-opened by the time you reach it but you should find the village stores open for walk-end snacks and a drink.
T=1.19
Walk Directions are here: L=1.19
4 comments:
This walk is one of the most treacherous for mud due to the cattle hooves churning up the ground. I’ve only managed to keep my balance by using trekking poles and have had enough of this terrain so won’t be coming this week.
Recent reports on walks in this area - Leigh to Sevenoaks (5/2) and Hever to Tonbridge (22/1) - did not suggest ghastly levels of mud similar to our Otford Round walk last month. With very little (if any) rain in Kent for some weeks now I'm hoping conditions will be manageable underfoot today. The post walk report on this Saturday's walk Hever to Dormans (12/2) might give us a further clue on what we might expect on Wednesday 16/2.
The Hever to Dormans walk report is now in, and there is no mention of excessive mud.
However, since the walk on Saturday there has been an afternoon and night of very heavy rain in Kent, with more rain to come later this afternoon, so might I suggest we play safe this Wednesday and wear gaiters and bring along a trecking pole or pair of poles.
Nine walkers alighted from the train at Hever, and one more joined us outside Chiddingstone Castle, so that made n=10 for today's adventure.
The sun shone as we left Hever in very mild conditions, unseasonably so. Later it clouded over, and the wind increased as Storm Dudley swept into Scotland and Northern England, with lesser impact on the south, so I will report w=sunny-spells-clouding-over-later. Infact, after lunch it briefly tried to rain but it passed over us. During the morning we had the company of a walk leader - first name John - a Scotsman from Ramblers, Westminster & Chelsea Group, and good company, too. He left us at Chiddingstone, where we found the Castle Inn closed, so on we continued to Penshurst.
Conditions under foot could be described, in horse racing parlance, as soft going. After seventy two hours of steady rain in this part of Kent, paths were muddy and waterlogged. The mud was slippery at times, but never as bad as we encountered last month in Otford. But muddy it was today.
Arriving in Penshurst we made for the Leicester Arms, where six of us enjoyed a good lunch, served efficiently and with a smile. The sandwiches were particularly good. The others all popped in for a drink. After settling up the bill I called in to the downstairs gents and on my return upstairs, to put my walking boots back on, I found the others had all buggered off, leaving me behind. All I will say is I would never be so inconsiderate on a SWC walk and I would never, ever dream of setting off without a full complement - but I'm afraid this is rather typical of the SWC - one of the unattractive sides to it. Fortunately, as the walk updater, I knew the route and all was well, but I'm not sure what would have happened if my companions had set off leaving a new walker behind.
Leaving the pub the wind increased and rain threatened for a while as I made my way to Leigh. Some of my erstwhile companions stopped for refreshments in the Fleur de Lis pub, under new management and open afternoons now for drinks - which is good news. I met up with some of them at the railway station and I believe I was remarkably polite to them, all considered. We only had a few minutes to wait before our trains arrived to take us back to town, some via Redhill and others via Tonbridge.
Today's walk is an excellent one, for its variety and interesting sites and sights and although it was muddy in places I believe we all enjoyed it.
But a shame about my companions behaviour.
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