12.9km (8 miles)
Toughness: 7 out of 10 short but energetic walk, taking in the
pretty village of Shoreham
Travel and tickets: Knockholt is in Zone 6. On the return journey buy a single ticket
from Otford to Swanley (Swanley is covered by 60+ Oystercard) or, if you have a
Zone1-6 travelcard, you should buy a single from Otford to St. Mary Cray. Otherwise
a day return to Sevenoaks will suffice.
Train times: Take the 10.01
from Charing Cross; 10.10 London Bridge; 10.19 Lewisham. Arrives Knockholt 10.50
Return trains from Otford are at xx01; xx15; xx31; xx.45
Walk Description: This walk
approaches the familiar walking territory around Shoreham and Otford in Kent
from an unfamiliar angle, passing at first over wooded hills, then climbing up
and over a steep ridge to get down to Shoreham.
In the afternoon the route
goes into a lovely hilly area of woodland and fields, passing through the
lovely hidden valley of Magpie Bottom, a nature reserve, with fine downland
flowers and butterflies in the summer.
Lunch and tea: Shoreham,
5.3km (3.3 miles) into the walk, has three possible lunch pubs. Serving more
standard pub fare (and also being on the walk route) is the Kings Arms (01959 523100), with the more upmarket Samuel
Palmer (01959 525442) just up the
road. Both have some outside seating, but for a more tranquil garden the Crown (01959 522903) is recommended, reached by a small
diversion off the walk route and also serving standard pub fare.
The village also has
the Shoreham Aircraft Museum (01959
524416), open 10am-4pm on weekends year round, which has a tea room set in
a pleasant garden, while the Mount Vineyard (01959 524008) in the heart of the village has a
restaurant (booking advised) serving pizza.
In Otford: Hospices of Hope charity shop has
a tea room at its rear, which is open till 4pm on Saturdays.
Almost opposite the
Hospices of Hope there is also Sally's Cake Emporium, open to 4pm
Tuesday to Sunday.
Otford also has two pubs,
the first one you pass being the more basic Woodman by the
roundabout, with the Bull, a cosy chain pub, 150 metres beyond the
roundabout on the left.
For walk
directions click here,
for GPX click here and
for a map of the route click here.
T=swc.37
1 comment:
N=20 on this walk, including two who left a backpack on the outward train and so had to wait at Knockholt for it to return in order to retrieve it: we saw them briefly at the end of lunch (they arrived just as we were leaving: sorry about that) but not otherwise. One walker also seemed to join us mid morning.
The weather was the usual perma-gloom: w=grey-skies-and-mist-on-the-tops. The latter was sometimes quite atmospheric in a Lord of the Rings Elvish Quest kind of way. There was the usual amount of mud for the time of year.
Being short, this walk seems to be exclusively done between Christmas and New Year. It makes an energetic winter outing and fills the daylight hours nicely, but it would be lovely to do it in in July when the sun is shining and the downland full of flowers and butterflies. As it was, imagination (mine at least…) had to supply these adornments.
Quite a few of us (I did not count) had lunch in the King’s Arms, which always offers good portions. Some sandwichers had drinks. As for tea, I was not optimistic, but several managed to squeeze into the Hospices of Hope tea room, even though officially they closed early at 3pm. Four more of us went to the not inferior Sally’s, where I had an amazing chocolate fudge cake. We filled in the time until the 16.29 Thameslink train with a hasty mulled wine in the very busy Bull Inn
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