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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.

Sunday 21 July 2019

Sunday Walk – Lavender fields on the Shoreham Figure-of-8

Extra Walk 289a – Shoreham Figure-of-8
Length: 15½ km (9.6 miles). Toughness: 5/10

10:12 Sevenoaks train from Blackfriars, calling at lots of stations in south London and arriving Shoreham (Kent) at 11:09. Or take the 10:25 Canterbury West train from Victoria and change at Swanley (arr 10:51, dep 11:00) for the Sevenoaks train. Make sure you buy a ticket to Shoreham (Kent), not S-by-Sea.

Trains back from Shoreham to Blackfriars are half-hourly, at xx:08 & xx:38. You could change at Bromley South for Victoria, but you wouldn't get back much quicker.

This is a figure-of-8 walk in the familiar surroundings of the Darent valley: a southern loop via Otford followed by a northern loop via Lullingstone, where the extensive lavender fields of Castle Farm should be in full bloom. As the village at its centre has four lunch pubs and two or three tea places as well, you shouldn't have a problem getting fed and watered en route.

Note that I'm suggesting the shorter version of this figure-of-8 walk, described in the text as the Alternative Walk. Contrarians who do the longer Main Walk instead (by accident or design) might not encounter the others for the rest of the day – a blessing or a curse, depending on your mood.

You'll need to bring the walk directions from the Shoreham Figure-of-8 walk page. Clicking 'Alternative Walk' under Walk Options will save two or three sheets of paper and hopefully make them easier to follow.
T=swc.289.a

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi. Is there an admission charge for the farm? Thank you.

Sean said...

There's no charge to visit the farm shop. Access to the lavender fields is by a 1¼-hour guided tour only, but the footpath passes quite close to them. I've put a link to the farm's website in the walk post. Sean

Anonymous said...

Thank you.

Mr M Tiger said...

A w=warm-mostly-cloudy-muggy day. 12 off the Blackfriars train, 6 off the Victoria train (which was delayed just enough to miss the connection at Swanley. So 4 went on to Otford and picked up the walk there and 2 changed at Swanley for a later connection). 2 drove. How’s your maths? I make that n=20 It’s worth mentioning that Blackfriars is an abysmal place to get a ticket early Sunday. No windows open and a massive queue for the one (ONE!!) working ticket machine. The walk itself was fine. Very scenic. There were coos and purrs of praisefor the author. Even grumpy old Mr Tiger managed to remain vaguely positive, even on the final ascent up to the Shoreham Cross.
Most ate at the Crown, one or two at the Kings Arms. Tea for some was at the Battle of Britain Museum, for others, at the Honeypot which has reopened. There was lavender and some was brought back.