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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 7 January 2017

Saturday Third Walk -- Open Ridges and a Dickensian Pub

SWC Walk 35:  Cuxton to Sole Street


Distance:  11.7 miles or 18.8 km for those more metrically minded
Difficulty:  5 out of 10

Train:  Take the 9:55 AM Southeastern train to Rochester from London St. Pancras (10:02 Stratford), changing at Strood (arrive 10:27; depart 10:34), arriving at Cuxton at 10:38.  Alternatively, you can take the 9:09 AM slow coach to Strood from London Charing Cross (9:12 Waterloo East; 9:17 London Bridge; 9:27 Lewisham) and change onto the Cuxton train at Strood (arriving 10:19; departing 10:34). Return trains from Sole Street are hourly until 21:00; then there is a 21:31 and a 22:31. Buy a day return to Rochester.   
This walk has not been done in quite some time and from recollection it is a pleasant walk in a pretty, but not well known, section of the North Downs with contrasting elements – including some nice open ridges and, for those of you who are Dickens fans, the chance to visit a pub, The Leather Bottle, that features briefly in the Pickwick Papers.  The walk can be shorten after lunch.  You can find more information about the walk and download the walk instructions here.

We are a bit spoiled for lunch and tea options on this walk. The recommended lunch pub is the Cock Inn (01474  814 208) in Luddesdowne (7.3 miles into the walk). However, the nearby Golden Lion (01474 815 644) also in Luddesdowne now serves lunch on Saturdays until 3:00pm and may well be worth a visit, as the Cock Inn also makes for a good tea stop towards the end of the walk (as the afternoon route loops back past it).   The Leather Bottle (01474 814 327) in Cobham (10 miles into the walk) serves food all day and could be used as a late lunch stop or a tea stop.

Enjoy the walk!
t=swc.35

1 comment:

Walker said...

N=12 on this walk. A w=gloomy-and-drizzly day. Under such circumstances the walk (which I might belatedly point out is much more varied and interesting than last Monday's Farningham to Sole Street) did its best to charm and enchant us, but truth to say it was rather the good company and interesting chat that provided the cheer.

We tried the Golden Lion for lunch. Very much a "locals" pub in which we were the only diners but the menu and food was not bad and the welcome perfectly friendly. Getting to Cobham at 3.50pm we split between those anxious to finish the walk in the daylight (what passed for daylight, anyway) and those who wanted a quick drink in the Leather Bottle. The pub party emerged half an hour later and still just about managed to get to the Cock Inn under natural light. We met some of the others there and had another drink in cosy surroundings.

There was much discussion about whether to stay or longer but the net result was we all went for the 6pm train, the last part of the walk being an atmospheric night crossing of a large arable field (without torches: you would be surprised how much light there is even at this time). Moonlight walk plans sadly had to wait for another day.