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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 13 January 2018

Saturday Walk: Leigh to Tunbridge Wells

Leigh to Tunbridge Wells - Book1 Walk 15
11.7 miles / 18.9km


Penshurst Place, the Medway Valley, and Tunbridge Wells


Trains: Take the 09:39  from London Victoria (09:56 East Croydon), arriving at Leigh at 10:34.
Return trains to London Bridge from Tunbridge Wells at xx29/59.  Note that there are no trains to Charing Cross today due to engineering works.
Buy a day return to Tunbridge Wells.


Lunch: The Spotted Dog (tel 01892 870 253) at Smart's Hill, phone first if you would like to sit inside.  An alternative nearby is the Bottle House Inn (01892 870306) on Coldharbour Road.


Tunbridge Wells has plentiful teashops in the Pantiles area and the High Street (Juliet's has nice cakes).  Or a five-minute walk past the station up Mount Pleasant Road will bring you to the splendid Opera House, now a JD Wetherspoon pub.


T=1.15

3 comments:

Marcus said...

n=13 SWC walkers alighted from the scheduled train at Leigh, together with some 20 in a Meet-Up group, none of whom seemed to know where they were going. Having been corralled by a leader of sort, they set out 50 metres behind us, on the opening leg of our walk to Penshurst. 75 metres ahead of us was an additional group of 8 walkers, who disappeared into the great unknown on reaching Penshurst. The Meet-Uppers also went their own way after Penshurst, not to be seen again by us during the rest of the day.
The weather was w=overcast-and-mild, with the sun briefly appearing when we reached Smarts Hill, to disappear back into the clouds after lunch. Said lunch was enjoyed by 5 of us at the excellent Spotted Dog pub, who had reserved a cosy alcove for us. Some of the sandwichers dropped in for a drink, with 4 of them setting out on the long afternoon leg shortly after our arrival (the other 4 left thirty minutes later).
On leaving the pub, as we headed back to the top of Smarts Hill, us lunchioners were treated to the sight of 5 young roe deer dashing across the road, some 50 metres ahead of us, to disappear into the woodland beyond.
Time now to mention the mud: it was heavy duty for most of the day, mainly of the slubberdub, slippery variety, but all seemed to cope with it, and accepted that being early January, there will be mud !
Our afternoon was uneventful but very pleasant, this walk having lots of variety to keep a walker interested. We were losing the light as we eventually entered RTW, where 4 of us stopped at Juliet's Cafe in the High Street for a very nice tea. Up the hill then to the railway station for a fast train back to London.
A most enjoyable day was had in good company in Kent's lovely countryside: indeed, I might be tempted to venture out again on a SWC walk on a Saturday !

Anonymous said...

An alternative lunchtime pub is The Bottle House Inn, close to The Spotted Dog. A few of us looked at it and it seemed popular. Might be a good option when there's a large group http://www.thebottlehouseinnpenshurst.co.uk/

Sandy said...

Not surprised you were running out of daylight Marcus. I was one of the "30 minutes later" group, we caught up with the advance party and arrived at RTW together; it was getting pretty murky even at 4.15. Four of us went to a cafe called Claudia's, which apparently used to be something else, but was fine, and got the 1659 train.