Saturday walk - Sevenoaks to Westerham - Along the Greensand escarpment, with fine views

Length: 18.5km (11.6 miles), or 19.6km (12.2 miles) with a diversion to the earlier lunch pub

Toughness: 6 out of 10: some steep hills. T=swc.20

9.45 train from Charing Cross (9.48 Waterloo East, 9.52 London Bridge) to Sevenoaks, arriving 10.19

Buy a day return to Sevenoaks.

For walk directions click here, for GPX click here, for a map of the route click here. 

It is three and a half years since this walk had an airing, and in the past it has tended to be done in bluebell time, ie early spring. But I think it will make a fine early autumn outing. After a start through Knole Park (where there may be some fallow deer rutting in progress) and then a slightly awkward crossing of a main road, you are out into very quiet and little-visited territory under the Greensand Way escarpment. You climb this gradually, with increasingly fine views, to get to the pretty village perchè of Ide Hill. It is then woods and hills northwards to Westerham.

For lunch, the escarpment a little before Ide Hill has some beautiful spots to sit with your picnic, but for a pub lunch there is a choice of the Windmill in Sevenoaks Weald, 4.8 miles into the walk, or the popular but capacious Cock Inn in Ide Hill after 8 miles. The Windmill is a charming little village pub, which seems to be under new management and to have a somewhat foody menu (see here). It involves a small diversion off the main walk route, so you might be advised to phone them first to be sure they have a place. 

The Cock Inn does food all afternoon, so to get there a bit behind the main lunchtime rush might be no bad thing. Ide Hill also has a community shop that serves hot drinks and savouries and has a few outside tables.

A mile or so after Ide Hill, the National Trust run Emmetts Garden has a tea room, open till 5pm, and once you get to Westerham, there are all sorts of cafes and pubs: see the walk directions or home page, though this may need updating a bit.

Getting back from Westerham, involves getting the 246 bus from Westerham to Hayes (30 minutes) or Bromley South (40 minutes). This goes at 21 and 51 past until 18.21, and then hourly at 21 past. It is a TFL bus and you can use Oyster and contactless (and free travel passes???) and it costs the same as a single London bus fare. 

Bromley South is the best place to get off, since it has very regular trains to Victoria (20 mins), as well as Thameslink trains to Blackfriars (23 and 53 minutes past - 36 minutes journey time), and is definitely covered by your Sevenoaks return. I doubt the Sevenoaks return would cut the mustard at Hayes, but if this is more convenient for you, trains go from there at 00, 15, 30, and 45 past. There no longer seems to be a bus from Westerham to Sevenoaks.