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Monday 14 December
– Milton Keynes to Blisworth
For financial reasons (saving a third off the train fare) I didn’t start walking from Milton Keynes Station until twenty to eleven. With 14 (flat) miles to walk, I should have been fine for daylight, and I was, but there wasn’t a great deal of leeway for flooded towpaths or whatever. So I determined to walk it non-stop.
A few days before the forecast had been dry, but at the last minute the weathergirl had, with a twirl of her pink duffle-coat, snatched it away and substituted intermittent rain. This turned out to be nothing more than fine drizzle, a nuisance but no worse. My plan was to cross to the Western side of the railway and strike North along one of Milton Keynes’s green corridors. I have to admit that they do them pretty well.
This one followed a meandering stream, with good walking surfaces through established woodland. Look carefully and there’s a factory, there a housing estate. But the heron which watched me, safe on the other side of the stream, didn’t care about the hidden horrors – he had a good beat to patrol. The towns and villages which were swallowed by the new town live on in odd ways – the “footpath to the church” is now a cul-de-sac of semis. One ancient settlement is obvious. The mediaeval pilgrimage chapel of Bradwell Abbey still stands, with other bits of the abbey incorporated into modern buldings.
As soon as I departed from the planned walking route, I was on my own – footpaths were withdrawn, and I had to find my own way through a semi-derelict trading estate before once again conforming to an official route to Wolverton. Wolverton has been strongly associated with railways since 1838, when it was chosen by the London & Birmingham Railway Company as the site of their railway works, for the very good reason that it was halfway between the eponymous cities. The works spawned housing which grew into the “new towns” of Wolverton and New Bradwell. How ironic that they should have been swallowed in their turn by Milton Keynes. The works had various guises, sometimes manufacturing and sometimes repairing locomotives and carriages, and there is still residual activity today. I walked past what appeared to be old buildings with a spanking new roof on them (thanks to Wikipedia for the background, as usual).
Just after the railway works I turned West then North West on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal. After a couple of hundred yards of being rather rundown, the towpath became wide and surfaced, possibly to accommodate bikes. Today it also accommodated a very jolly jogger, who wished me a cheery “good morning”. The canal itself was the colour of soup, possibly lentil or thin pea. I soon reached the Iron Trunk Aqueduct, which carries the canal over the River Great Ouse. Apparently it replaced a series of locks, down to and up from the river level, and later a brick-built aqueduct which collapsed. Like its much bigger brother at Pontcysyllte, the aqueduct is constructed such that the canal is only separated from the vertical drop by a low metal sill – boaters with vertigo, look away now!. The towpath, mercifully, has a bit more protection.
Sunday 6 December –
Leighton Buzzard to Milton Keynes
Sometimes I'm a bit simple. I sat on the 8.23am from Euston, decked out in my waterproofs, wondering why the train was full of under-dressed yoof looking sleepy. Then I twigged – they weren't planning to join me for a day's walking, they were on the way home from all-night clubbing. Silly me.
From Leighton Buzzard Station it took just five minutes to reach the Grand Union Canal, whose towpath was to be my route for most of the day. I was heading generally North; I say generally because, being a canal it did what canals do, and wandered along the contours between locks. Having started damp, the day was rapidly improving, with several patches of blue sky.
A heron stood proprietorially at the bottom of a canalside garden, keeping an eye on the wheelie bin. A sign warned against fishing beneath some electric cables; two men sat underneath the cables fishing.
The towpath became part of the National Cycle Network (promising a decent walking surface). I left Beds and entered Bucks. As the housing of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade were left behind, the canal became more rural. But a fairly constant traffic of dog-walkers, joggers and canoeists, together with the fisherman lining the bank, undermined any feeling of isolation. After a relatively short time in Buckinghamshire I entered the Magic Kingdom of Milton Keynes, firstly in the form of Bletchley. Almost immediately, housing estates sprang up to the left of the canal, while the on the right the fields continued. The condition of the towpath, which had been so good up to now, went rapidly downhill. The puddles were easily avoidable, but that brought its own hazards – I was walking dog-shit alley, and every step needed to be planned.
The A5 swept overhead, the noise intense despite the fact that it was Sunday. For long stretches the muddy towpath was shadowed, a few yards away, by much better walkways, so I frequently switched between the two. There was the traditional new town mix of linear green spaces with housing and other buildings lurking behind bushes. Excitable signs announced that the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway would soon link the canal I walking beside with those of the fenlands. While “soon” needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, a quick check on the Internet convinced me that there is genuine progress being made to build “Britain's first new canal for over a hundred years”. Power to their elbows.
Friday 4 December –
Leagrave to Leighton Buzzard
I wasn't expecting this to be a classic walk – from one dormitory town to another – and it wasn't. But it was a perfectly decent walk on a marvellous day.
The kiosk at Leagrave Station provided that essential third coffee of the morning, and the bright sunshine brilliantly illuminated the pollarded plane trees of Leagrave as I headed through the streets Westwards. Leagrave offered, you will be relieved to read, no more poetry, but it was easy to escape from. 15 minutes' walking took me to a tunnel beneath the M1, after which I was in open fields. I could see houses in two directions, and hear the motorway traffic in a third direction, but ahead of me to the North was peaceful farmland. Frost still lay in the shadows. I was – not unpleasantly – constantly reminded that I was still in prime dog-walking territory.
Eventually I ran out of well-marked paths, and resorted to a farm track to take me nearly into Chalton. Turning West again, I picked up a byway, gated at the start and forbidden to motorised traffic (hurray!). It was a beautiful grassy track, up to about 15 feet across at its widest, and the only heavy traffic was birds flying across from bush to bush. A waymark erected by the Chiltern Society suggested that I was now in the Chilterns, but the few Chiltern-like hills rose from an almost flat plain. Later the landscape started to roll gently.
I reluctantly left the lovely byway, striking off Southwards and then Westwards again on a bridleway. I got a bit confused about the route as I passed a stud farm, a kind member of staff interrupting his coffee break to point me back in the right direction.
I joined the Icknield Way and the Chalgrave Heritage Trail, their waymarks jostling for attention on the signposts. Along the byway, the bridleway and a series of footpaths, crossing paths were impeccably signed. When I had to leave field edges and walk across a field, I found the downside – the route across the cropped field had been marked on the ground, but no attempt had been made to re-establish a decent walking surface after ploughing, harrowing or whatever had happened to break up the ground. So my pace slowed right down as mud built up on my boots. Very tiresome (and illegal).
I walked through Tillsworth, stopping on a bridleway just beyond the village to sit on a bank and eat my lunch. A rather languid thwacking noise alerted me to the fact that I was a hedge away from a golf course, but my munching was safely completed. Five minutes after lunch, the footpath I was following disappeared completely under the plough/harrow/etc. A finger post pointed across a crop of something or other, so across it I plodded. I can only think that farmers imagine they are protecting their crops by hiding the footpaths, but having me wander in roughly the right direction as I try to match up the field boundaries with the map doesn't seem to me to be good for crop welfare. Silly sillies. Eventually, with the help of the GPS on my phone, I got back on the right track, and made my way to Eggington.
Eggington House is “regarded as a very fine example of late 17th century domestic architecture, and is a Grade II* listed building. At the time of its construction in 1696 it was completely up to date and innovative in its design - which was unusual in the provinces, where architectural styles usually lagged behind that of the larger cities” (Wikipedia). It looked very handsome in the last of the afternoon sun (cloud was streaming in). The village has an attractive centre, but also has the usual Home Counties accretion of overstuffed commuters' houses on the outskirts. I was amused to see that one particularly bloated example was called “Tumbrels”, presumably because the owners had recognised that they will be first to the guillotine, come the revolution!
I took a break from the End to End project to be sociable for a change and walk with friends in the Lake District.
I hoped to test out whether I could still climb hills, after breaking my ankle in February. I aimed to do this in wet and dry weather. Wet went well, dry hardly happened, but the hill climbing was back to normal.
This is pleasing.
Sunday 8 November –
Hatfield to Leagrave
After the glorious weather of the previous day, things had taken a turn for the gloomy. But it was not raining, and no rain fell throughout the day. A road walk of about a mile due North from Hatfield station (for the grim story of how I got there, read the previous entry) took me back to the Lea Valley Walk, last seen at Enfield Lock.
The river and the walk squeeze through a narrow gap between Hatfield and Welwyn. And I soon entered Stanborough Park, a joint effort over the years between Hatfield Council and Welwyn's New Town Development Corporation. The park has a couple of lakes, one for fishing, one for boating, and both for the use of a lot of noisy ducks. I'm always astonished by how much kit fishermen need. The largest two items are usually the elaborate easy chair and the trolley to put it on, together with all the actual fishing gear.
The map rather imprecisely indicated a Westward direction for my walk, with the snag that the A1(M) was in the way. After giving up on finding any signs, I made up my own route for half a mile, rejoining the planned walk at Lemsford Mill, now the offices of Ramblers Worldwide Holidays.
I walked across a golf course, always a less than comfortable experience. But this was a particularly beautiful course, and the clue to why wasn't hard to find. This was the Brocket Estate, and I was walking through the grounds of Brocket Hall. Built in the 18th Century, the current house replaces two previous houses, the first going back to the 13th Century. The house is now the clubhouse for the golf courses (there are two), a hotel and a conference centre, the conversion being made by the third Lord Brocket, a “convicted fraudster and reality television presenter” (Wikipedia).
Leaving the Brocket Estate, I followed pleasant paths to Wheathampstead, an overgrown village. More paths took me to Leasey Bridge, where a fine bridleway, which probably used to be a railway track bed, took me Westwards, very close to the Lea, hardly more than a stream at this point. I discovered the reason for the quality of the path when I reached the outskirts of Harpenden – it was the local Ramblers wot dun it, thirty years ago. It's holding up very well.
The only thing I associate Harpenden with is the late, self-proclaimed Maharajah of Harpenden, Eric Morecambe. I didn't need any further knowledge of the place; after crossing a busy road at a nasty bend, I was back to the old railway track bed, heading North West and fast closing with the still-operating (occasionally) railway line.
It takes a quarter of an hour to walk past Luton's sewage works, which is a fine tribute to its inhabitants. When I last walked in this neck of the woods, the footpath was a muddy affair at the top of some meadows by the railway line. Now it is a tarmac super-highway, evidently destined to be a major cycle route. They weren't quite ready for me, since all useful signs petered out as I reached the outskirts of Luton. So I moved to plan B, navigating my way through the centre of the town (I get self-conscious about consulting an Ordnance Survey map in towns, so I snatch a series of quick looks, stashing it away in my pocket between-whiles).
I was eating my breakfast, paying half attention to the news on the telly, when they came up with one of those “who'd credit it” stories, a bit of a laugh after all the war and recession stuff. It seemed that there was this railway company who couldn't run their railway today – not at all, not a single train. It wasn't a strike, but they didn't have seven-day contracts for their staff and depended on volunteers to run the trains on Sundays. Since the company don't pay overtime rates for this overtime, the drivers had decided, very understandably and not for the first time, to enjoy their Sundays with a lie-in. And the service involved was the one I had been planning to use, to Hatfield. I'd even got a ticket!
Because I'm an “information professional”, I was able to hunt down further information on the First Capital Connect (the incompetent train operators) and Network Rail ('nuff said) websites – nothing obvious, of course, you had to look really hard. I could, they were graciously pleased to inform me, able to catch a train from St Pancras to St Albans (First Capital Connect's other service - alarm bells should have rung), and then a bus to Hatfield. So no tragedy, just a bit of a nuisance.
I polled up at St P in good time for the 8.34. 8.34 came, but no train. The poor guys on the front line (the yellowcoats), had had the “standby for the train” message from Network Rail, so they were surprised when it didn't appear. An increasingly-large straggle of people, including many with huge cases as they were expecting to be taken to Luton Airport, were taking it in turns to question one of the yellowcoats, who were unfailingly polite but had to admit that they know nothing.
Then the call came: the trains were starting at Kentish Town, and everyone would be taken there by the buses which were outside the station. The yellowcoats raced over to the window, while I asked myself, if “they” knew the trains were starting up the line sufficiently well in advance to lay on buses, why didn't “they” tell the blokes on the ground, It began to seem like an academic question, as there were no buses, but it turned out that they were lurking shyly up the street. We all – me with my little rucksack, almost everyone else with tons of luggage, struggled down the escalator and went outside to the waiting buses. Very slowly, the buses remaining in strict convoy, we made our way to Kentish Town, where they were ready for us – oh no, sorry, I made that bit up.
There were a couple of trains there, but nobody to tell us which to catch. A helpful man (a passenger of course, not a First Capital Connect person) told us all that he'd been informed (who by?) that the train on platform 3 was for Luton. So we jostled our way down the narrow steps to platform 3. Ten minutes or so later, the friendly driver (no irony intended) informed us that the train was indeed going to Luton, but stopping at every stop; a faster train was about to depart from platform 4. Panic – cases were unshipped in haste, All the would-be flyers (and I) clambered back up the steps, across the bridge and down to platform 4.
The alleged departure time of the train had just passed (I looked at the information board, which also said “Bedford only”), and all the doors were closed – except one, which was being held open by a beckoning woman (no, of course not – she was another passenger). We all duly filed through the single door, with me leaning back out again to bark, interrogatively, “St Albans?” to the driver, who shouted “yes”.
It did indeed go to St Albans, and the bus connection went like clockwork – luckily the bus was run by Arriva, not the First Group!
Saturday 7 November
- Enfield Lock to Hatfield
Heading West from Enfield Lock station, I soon rejoined the Capital Ring, alongside the Turkey Brook – at this point a canalised stream between a recreation ground and a line of back fences. It was a wonderful day, cloudless and quite cold. There was a bit more cloud to come, but nothing to disturb the sunshine for long, and no threat of rain.
Crossing the A10, I came across another watercourse, the New River. The clue of course is in the name: spot the word “new” on a map and be sure you're in antique territory. “The New River is a man-made waterway in England, opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water taken from the River Lee and from Amwell Springs (which ceased to flow by the end of the 19th century), and other springs and wells along its course. Its original termination point was at New River Head near Clerkenwell, Islington, close to the current location of Sadler's Wells theatre — where water from the river was used to flood a large tank to stage an Aquatic Theatre at the beginning of the 19th century. Today by following the New River Path it is possible to walk almost the whole length of the New River from its source between Hertford and Ware to its destination in Stoke Newington, Hackney.” (Wikipedia) Indeed, my route took in the the New River Path for a few hundred yards.
Leaving the Capital Ring, I followed the old course of the New River (that is, even older than the new course!), then headed North. I passed two recently-dead foxes, lying on the ground within three yards of each other. Poisoned, presumably. I used a footbidge to cross the M25. Was it busy? Guess. Yes, right again! I was now entering Theobalds Park. Theobald House (later Palace) was built by Lord Burghley (Elizabeth the First's hatchet man) in the mid-16th Century. The Cecils later swapped it for Hatfield House, for the usual nefarious reasons. Later owners included the Meux family, best known as brewers. I believe today it's a hotel and conference centre, and I never saw it!
Thursday 5 November 2009 -
Royal Albert to Enfield Lock
As I walked down the steps from Royal Albert DLR station, my immediate worry was where I was going to find my third cup of coffee. Two at breakfast is enough, but by nine-ish I'm starting to need a third. But no panic – a kiosk nestles beneath the legs of the DLR, so I was able to satisfy my craving as I watched the morning flights take off from the City Airport.
My route lay North across a main road, but I was protected from the traffic's roar by a cordon sanitaire of shrubs and bushes. This is the docklands standard approach: housing developments are connected by a chain of pedestrian routes with thick planting to hide the traffic. I'm not knocking it – it works pretty well. I rejoined my old pal, the Capital Ring (inner orbital path) to penetrate some older housing and cross the A13, turning to the West along the Greenway. This could be a puzzle – a well-surfaced route for pedestrians and cyclist along the top of a long, straight embankment. But why build the embankment? The occasional fruity whiff gives a clue. I was walking on top of the Northern Outfall Sewer, 'a major gravity sewer which runs from Wick Lane in Hackney to Beckton Sewage Works in east London; most of it was designed by Joseph Bazalgette after an outbreak of cholera in 1853 and "The Big Stink" of 1858.' (Wikipedia) The result for walkers is an elevated and largely peaceful journey towards Stratford.
While the roads climb to cross the embankment at right-angles to the Greenway, tube and rail lines go underneath. I wonder how many passengers realise what is flowing over their heads. As I approached Stratford, things got a bit complicated. The pedestrian route threaded its way through several construction sites, yellow-jacketed men posted at regular intervals to protect workman from marauding walkers. The reason, indeed the reason for almost all activity in the area, is the Olympics. The building site, which seems to require more complicated access arrangements than the Channel Tunnel, sprawls across what used to be Stratford Marsh, a flood plain for the various rivers which converge here and enter the Thames.
I had to make a short detour where a bit of the Greenway was blocked entirely, regaining my desired route by crossing yet another site access road. A sign instructed me to 'give way to all traffic'. I treated this with silent contempt; luckily there was no traffic so my resolve was not tested. The final few hundred yards of the Greenway gave me a grandstand view of the grandstands (arf arf). The main Olympic Stadium, which appears from the outside to be more or less finished, almost loomed over the footpath. As I turned off the Greenway and on to the towpath of the River Lea to head North, the Olympics site continued to dominate the scene, huge lorries roaring along a roadway just a large fence away from the river and me.
A word about the spelling – it doesn't really matter. The Lee navigation flows through the Lea Valley, and over the centuries twenty-odd others spellings have apparently been used. So I'll stick to Lea.
When I started the walk it was a cold but sunny day, now it was turning cloudier. There was a brief shower. There was a curious contrast between the social aspect of the Greenway and towpath sections of my walk. On the former, people kept their heads down and avoided eye contact, let alone conversation. On the towpath, it wasn't exactly long lost brother stuff, but people did say 'hello', or at least grunt in a friendly fashion.
'Wiv a ladder and some glasses' - I didn't need the equipment as there were no 'ouses in between me and 'ackney Marshes. From this point Northwards the value of the Lea Valley as a playground for East Londoners becomes obvious. There is a lot of industry and commercial activity, but it's usually held at bay by the river and its green corridor. At one point I was convinced that a London bus was bearing down on me along the towpath but, even here, there was a thin strip of walkway protected from the traffic by a crash barrier.
I passed the factory where Matchbox Toys were made, sadly no more.
The shale and dirt towpath made a nice change from the metalled surfaces earlier in the day. As I reached Walthamstow Marshes, the sun came out again. I left the Capital Ring at Upper Clapton, continuing to follow the Lea Valley Way along the towpath. Three orthodox Jews sat on a bench. The middle, older man, exchanged a cheery greeting with me. Was he instructing the two younger men, or were they just enjoying the waterside? Traffic noise rose to a crescendo as I drew nearer to the North Circular Road. I passed beneath it and hurried on. The noise level returned to the more normal low hum, the most intrusive sound being the constant warning sirens of fork lift trucks.
There was now an astonishing contrast between the dark banks of cloud in front of me and the sun coming over my shoulder, picking out the double row of yellow-painted electrical pylons which follow the line of the river. Further North, the pylons were green, and were indeed being painted by intrepid workmen as I passed. As usual, people doing actual work were being shadowed by other people standing around in yellow jackets. That's the business to be in in this neck of the woods – hi-viz jackets and vests. If I'd collected a pound from every person I'd passed wearing one during the day, I haven't the faintest idea how rich I'd have been, but I would struggled under the weight of the pounds.
The autumn colours here were as impressive as anything I'd seen in Kent and Sussex earlier in earlier legs of my walk. A stainless steel interpretation board informed me that otters could be seen in the area (albeit mostly at night), the 'sign of a healthy river.' I was pleased to see my regular companions, sheep, grazing the embankment of several of the valley's reservoirs; later, horses took over the grass-munching duties.
As I approached Enfield, the London Loop (outer orbital path) swung in from the East. I followed it past Enfield Island Village. This used to be the Royal Small Arms Factory where the Lee Enfield Rifle was manufactured. The island had a church, school, its own police station and housing for the 1700 workers. The Lee Enfield was a key weapon during the Boer War and two World Wars. End of history lesson. From here it was a short journey by footpath and pavement to Enfield Lock station, the end of today's walk.
Saturday 31 October -
Swanley to Royal Albert
No special skill was needed to leave Swanley. Following the railway Westwards on an enclosed footpath, I quickly went under the A20 and reached fields. The day was grey, but I had no rain. A footbridge took me across the railway, and then things went slightly haywire.
The footpath shown on the map would have gone through a huge heap of of building rubble, but a path slightly further on looked promising. After a bit of GPS and map work I found the road I was aiming for, struck off across fields again, and got lost again. Nothing drastic - I soon reached the safe environment of a bungalow estate in St Mary Cray. I self-consciously pocketed my GPS and map.
A mile or so of suburbia led me into Scadbury Nature Reserve and three-quarters of an hour of traffic-free walking (hurray!). I passed a group of people being put through their paces by a zealous leader. Two women were sentenced to three sprints each up the hill I was puffing my way up at walking pace; it made me quite tired to watch them. As I crossed fields on the outskirts of Chislehurst, I startled some exotic birds, bright green and looking like parrots. At the same time, the dull crump of gunfire began in the distance. Parrot hunters? Small patches of blue sky were starting to appear.
As I was about to enter a housing estate, a fox passed me in an adjoining field, Glancing uneasily back at me, it loped off into some scrubby woodland, It needn’t have worried - the seven foot fence was ample protection from the likes of me.
Sunday 25 October – Borough Green to Swanley
As I left the station at Borough Green, the advertised sunny day was being interrupted by some threatening dark clouds, almost squeezing the blue sky out altogether. I walked the (unbusy) main road across the M26 to Wrotham. I was now inside a triangle of motorways (M26/M20/M25) in which I would spend most of the day. It wasn't as bad as it sounds!
Wrotham, an attractive overgrown village with a large number of pubs, was dozing peacefully on a Sunday morning. A lady struggled past with her heavy Sunday newspaper; a few more ladies were parking cars and heading for the 10am service at the church.
A brief walk through a housing estate brought me to a footpath heading North; this led to the North Downs Way, which would take me a few miles West towards the Darent Valley. A metalled lane was succeeded by an unsurfaced byway. Deep ruts indicated that motor traffic uses this route. Sure enough, I was passed by two motorcyclists. I have to say straight away that they were going very slowly, and we exchanged cheery greetings. The fact remains that these ancient routes can't cope with motorised vehicles, especially in wet weather.
The North Downs Way, now mercifully a footpath, headed up the steep scarp slope of the Downs. Just before I entered the trees which cloak the top of the hill, I stopped for a breather, and a look back across to the dome of the Weald, across which I had walked on my previous trip. As sun and clouds fought it out, I climbed steps through the woods to a road, where I had to turn East for a few yards, before picking up a woodland footpath which swung round to the West and levelled out. This was the top of the North Downs.
A strange phenomenon went with walking a National Trail – other people walking past me on a Sunday morning. It's not what I'm used to!
Another strange encounter was with a horse and a cow communing silently through a gate, while others of each kind stood around. And rare things came in threes: above Otford, I entered some Access Land, which I usually associate with places much wilder than this.
As the North Downs way continued West to Otford, I turned North of West along a quiet lane. The North Downs are cut through by the Darent Valley, and I used the lane and a connecting bridleway to reach the valley at Shoreham Station. A little beyond the station I turned North and joined the Darent Valley Path. Almost immediately, I left it to enter Shoreham Churchyard for an important engagement, my lunch.
Hunger assuaged, I left the churchyard and walked into Shoreham village. Artist Samuel Palmer, a follower of William Blake, lived in this village from about 1826 to 1835. Blake used to visit him here, and it is alleged (without, as far as I know, any supporting evidence) that Blake drew his inspiration for Jerusalem from these surroundings. England's green and pleasant land? Well yes, it certainly seemed that way on this now sunny and increasingly warm day.
The route North passed the house Palmer lived in, alongside the shallow, sauntering Darent. Leaving Shoreham for the fields, the Darent Valley Path was taking some pretty heavy foot traffic, and why not? It's a marvellous walk – level, with few stiles to climb, and in lovely countryside. Palmer, Blake and the other Ancients would probably still recognise it.
When I reached the cafe at the Lullingstone Country Park visitor centre, it was too soon after lunch for coffee and cake, but I had some anyway. A bit further on I passed Lullingstone Castle, recalling the television series about the rather desperate attempts of the owners to make it pay as a visitor attraction. I have to report that it was not very busy.
To avoid a road in the valley bottom, the Path turned left and climbed sharply. The reward was a great view back across the valley, with the railway viaduct and Eynsford in the middle distance.
Where the Path dived back into the valley, I left it and headed West on a series of private roads (doubling as public footpaths) and bridleways towards Swanley. I passed the Bird of Prey Centre, explaining the procession of people with hooded birds I had seen a few minutes earlier. Further on, I broke out of the motorway triangle by passing under the M25, which was (surprise! surprise!) very busy. Crockenhill FC's Sunday afternoon match was in progress.
Crossing the A20, I entered suburbia with a vengeance. Swanley was sleeping off Sunday Lunch. This was just two or three miles, as the crow flies, from the Darent Valley, but it was a different world. Thank goodness for the Green Belt - but how long can it last? Helpful signs guided me towards the station and as I walked in, the train to Victoria was announced.
Tuesday 13 October – Marden to Borough Green
Marden is a mixture of traditional Kent village, commuter housing and industrial estate. Leaving my luxury b&b, I sampled the last element for a few minutes, before striking off on a field path across the Weald.
The Weald is not spectacular, but it is attractive. When the Kent/Sussex/Surrey peninsula was worn down, leaving the remains of the top layer as the North and South Downs, the Weald was left in the middle as a gently-ragged dome. The soil is rich and the crops appear to prosper.
This year has been especially good for plant growth – the right proportions of warmth and moisture resulted in very green greens in the Spring and Summer; now in Autumn, the reds and browns are equally impressive.
That lyrical interlude is just a cover-up for the fact that nothing much happened during this day’s walk across farmland and through sleek villages, the oast houses and cottages as likely to be occupied by bankers and businessmen as by farmers and growers.
I passed a man out walking with his dog. The dog appeared to be looking for something - nothing strange in that, dogs are always looking for something, but the man explained. "He's looking for your dog. He's so used to everyone having a dog round here that you've got him puzzled." I was obviously sorry to disappoint the dog.
It may have been largely uneventful, but it was a thoroughly pleasant saunter. The village (or small town) of Yalding is attractively bustling. Here I crossed the River Medway on an old bridge which finds it hard to cope with modern traffic. Vehicles are controlled by lights, and pedestrians take their chances beween the traffic flows.
Seeing a large board across a field, I was expecting another f*** off sign, but no! it was an interpretation board. Rather like the boards which have become ubiquitous in tourist areas (not a complaint - I read them), this one had explanations of what the farm was producing and how. A small brass plate on one leg had "Amy" engraved on it. If that means that it was Amy who put the board up, I thank her.
I picked up the Wealdway (I had previously been following the Greensand Way since Rye) to head North.
The church at East Peckham is cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust, which “looks after Church of England churches which are of architectural significance and are no longer used for regular worship” (Wikipedia). The benefit to walkers is that as you (unusually for this area) climb a rather steep hill, the church provides a splended sight.
The church at West Peckham is, as far as I know, a fully-functioning CofE church. I paid more attention to the village pub, just next to the church and the village green. Soup and ciabatta bread made a delicious lunch, after which I managed to get lost again, following a confusing woodland path which led to a more confusing orchard path. Some more GPS work and an unscheduled hack through a small thicket got me safely back on track near Basted. A bonus was two more candidates for my series of abandoned football photos.
Conversation:
Me: Hello.
Man: Hello.
Me: Beautiful day.
Man: A treat!
Quite right, it was.
From Basted, it was a simple and familiar walk uphill to Borough Green, a busy place on a main road, with a vital ingredient – a railway station. Having purchased some drinks and a chocolate bar, I walked straight on to a train, and 45 minutes later I was back in London, and looking forward to the next trip, from Borough Green to Swanley
Monday 12 October – Tenterden to Marden
I walked a few roads in the morning. These were mostly not very busy, and the hectic stretches were mercifully short. I could have avoided most of this by heading north-east instead of east, but I had a purpose. In order to justify my membership of the National Trust (which I don’t resent, despite not very often using it) I had decided to visit Sissinghurst for lunch and a quick look round.
The second half of the morning’s walk was more peaceful, consisting mostly of woodland paths.
Arriving at places by the back door being something of a speciality of mine, I entered Sissinghurst across the lake and through the trees, and left it through the car park. In between, I enjoyed a good lunch (rather better balanced than yesterday’s) and a mooch round the garden. How wonderful to be there on a sunny October Monday: how less than wonderful, I suspect, to be wrestling the crowds in Spring and Summer! When I first went to the entrance to the garden, I produced my NT membership card, but the very nice lady on duty explained that I needed to visit the ticket office first to "go through the computer". This process caused me no pain; I understand that Sissinghurst gets a divi from NT High Command for every visiting member.
The afternoon was characterised by blue sky, sun and fluffy clouds. Horse Race House, near Sissinghurst, had a very interesting sculpture in its garden. Orchards and hop gardens (not hop fields, my mum, a Maid of Kent, corrected me) dominated the walking, which was, surprisingly for October, accomplished in my shirtsleeves. A particularly exciting encounter was with a tiger – sadly dead – among the hop poles. .
My entry to Marden will be very grand in years to come. Young trees have been planted in two lines, diagonally across a field. Not yet a grand avenue, but give it time…
Sunday 11 October – Rye to Tenterden
Leaving Rye by the back door, crossing the railway line and diving off down a footpath which started as a back alley for local houses, I soon reached the countryside, followed my nose and almost immediately go lost. A wrong heading of a few degrees soon left me about half a mile from my intended course.
I should have known that it would happen. I passed a sign asking me to "follow the waymarked path", usually an indication that the waymarks will peter out and leave you in the middle of nowhere. Luckily I realised that the big house on the hill, which I should have left behind my right shoulder, was still doggedly square on to me. I whipped out the Magic Phone, got a GPS grid reference and a compass bearing, and soon recovered the situation.
A well-surfaced green lane, a back road through Peasmarsh and some field paths led me towards a road bridge across the Rother and the border with Kent. While still in East Sussex I avoided a wooden bridge, designed to keep you out of a muddy ditch in wet weather. It was in such a bad condition - missing planks, whole thing at a crazy angle - that a foot of mud would be a better bet.
I passed through Signsville - everywhere I looked, there was a sign telling me to go there, don't go there, keep out, f*** off. Some farmers spend their time and cash putting up these footling signs rather than simply marking the footpaths properly and keeping the stiles in good condition. How many people will be bothered to trespass if walking the legal footpath is the easiest option? - not many, I guess. I strongly suspected that it was Sign Man who had ploughed up the next field, leaving no trace of the footpath across it.
The clouds, which had been fighting the Sun all morning, appeared to be winning the battle as paths across farmland took me to my late lunch stop at Smallhythe Place, a lovely half-timbered cottage best known as the country retreat of actress Dame Ellen Terry. Many a thesp was entertained here in the thirty years she owned the cottage at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and the whole glittering ensemble is celebrated in a display of pictures, mementoes and costumes. These were collected and arranged by Ellen's daughter Edy who, as recently detailed in the National Trust's magazine, lived in a "largely lesbian" community which she had gathered around her at Smallhythe. There is a connection with Sissinghurst (which I had visited the previous day): Vita Sackville-West, chatelaine of Sissinghurst, apparently enjoyed a brief fling with one of Edy's lovers. The barn theatre is still used for performances, and the entrance doubles as a draughty café, where I enjoyed an unbalanced meal of pork pie followed by fruit cake - delicious.
Saturday 10 October - Dungeness to Rye
After bright sunshine as I ate my breakfast at the b&b, the clouds built as I strode towards my first appointment – with the sea.
At the tip of the shingle peninsula, I ritually dipped my toes into the surf, one for me and one for my mum. The next time I dip them in this manner will be either at Sandwood Bay or Kearvaig Bay, on the grounds that trying to do it at Cape Wrath would be suicidal.
From sea level I climbed the shingle bank and walked past the “new” lighthouse (the fifth to be built), which became necessary when the older of the existing lights was obstructed by the first nuclear power station. So now Dungeness has two lighthouses and two nuclear power stations, one of each in operation and one pensioned off. To serve the lighthouses, the power stations, the coastguard cottages and the shanty town of cottages, there is a web of concrete roads. The power stations don't in any sense spoil the area. Their ungainly appearance, and the constant hum of the “live” station, are entirely in keeping with the end-of-the-world atmosphere of the place.
The hardest part of this walk came first, with an hour and a half of trudging along the shingle. There is no real alternative here. Inland from the protective bank of shingle there is... more shingle! Arranged in unequal humps and hollows, the ground away from the sea is even more difficult to walk along than the edge. And anyway, the route is trammelled for most of the way by requirement to keep out of the Lydd firing ranges. Had there been firing scheduled, I would have had to take a triangular inland course, as the coast and a chunk of the sea comes within the danger zone. But there were no red flags today, so I plodded on.
I wasn't completely alone. Dotted along the shore were sea fishermen (yes, all men), each with an encampment of tents and large umbrellas providing, I presume, shelter for extra tackle and lunch.
Following the gently curving shoreline, I caught my first sight of the cliffs at Fairlight, several miles beyond the point where I would turn right to follow the River Rother up to Rye. At fairly frequent intervals I stepped over water running out of the shingle bank into the sea. Water from streams or ditches drains (a considerable distance) through the shingle.
Eventually, wet sand appeared on the seaward side of the shingle. At first this was intermittent and then continuous – I had reached the much friendlier walking surface of Camber Sands. An hour or more after leaving the fishermen behind, I had to get used to company again. The weather was perking up, with the sun driving away the clouds, and Camber was doing what it does best, hosting paddlers and sand-castle builders and wind-surfers.
I made a brief diversion along the road through Camber. This is not an inspiring place, consisting of a field of tin boxes – not caravans mostly, but rather those huts on two small wheels which are dropped into place and never move again – and a couple of rather sad shops. It was good to get back to the sea and eat my lunch perched in the dunes.
Two horse riders, accompanied by an enthusiastic dog, cantered and trotted up and down the beach as I neared the mouth of the Rother. A fishing boat, with the usual honour-guard of raucous seagulls, was just entering the river as I turned to walk inland. I passed the village of Rye Harbour on the opposite bank. This is not a pretty place – apart from the crumbling Martello Tower the most prominent features are some huge tin sheds and a chemical works – but family connections and fond memories blot out the eyesores.
When I first caught sight of Rye, it hardly seemed to be on a hill at all. But everything is relative and, as I walked towards it across the dead-flat regained marsh, the town reared up in front of me, the pointed tower of the church capping the roofscape. A surprisingly large number of fishing boats still line the river below the town
The streets were familiar to me from frequent visits, so I soon found my way to my lodgings near the station.
Later, as I roamed the streets in search of a coffee, I had a treat - Lamb House was unexpectedly open (unexpected by me; the National Trust probably remembered that it opens on Saturday afternoons). I had a quick rootle round the Henry James and EF Benson memorabilia, but the real treat was the garden. Who would believe that you could lose yourself for a quarter of an hour in a domestic garden in a place the size of Rye. It's all nooks and corners, a bench for every vista. Sheer delight.
As I left, the current tenants were returning. The deal is that they get to live in a lovely house in a picturesque town, as long as they put up with riffraff like me infesting the ground floor for two afternoons a week. It's a good billet despite this drawback, and I believe the National Trust have little trouble finding tenants.
After finishing my walk around the coast of Great Britain, I started to walk from Land’s End to John o’Groats. It went well for four days, and then I broke my ankle. This rather put me off.
So I have decided to start at Dungeness and walk to Cape Wrath. Both places have a suitable end-of-the-world feel, and the route between them should provide a good mix of waterside ambles and hill climbs.
I am starting on 10 October 2009. This will be a weekends and holidays affair. I have sketched a route, but this will change frequently as I discover better paths
