July 14, 2003: Yalding to Sutton Valence
The King’s Head in Sutton Valence
The next day chosen for our continued assault on the Greensand Way followed, by about four weeks, our completion of the Cotswold Way. We chose a very warm Monday, with temperatures in the 80’s, and I proposed an early start so that we would be in the right position for a pub lunch.
I had a somewhat groggy start at 6:00, a process that included an early walk with our new puppy, Fritz – now three months old. I had some problem with my right hiking boot, which I retied twice before noticing that I was struggling with the right half of my old pair of boots, not my new Timberlands. I disdained any tape today, however, and had no problems whatsoever.
I left the house at about 7:15 and had an easy transition to Charing Cross. I had about twenty minutes before my 8:15 rendezvous with the Lees (and their cousins) but they were there early too and so there was plenty of time to buy our tickets (too early for Senior Savers), extra water and snacks, and a coffee. We were standing in front of the arriving hordes pouring off the trains while we searched for information about our own. I managed to spill coffee on my white Descouverts t-shirt but later my compass rather neatly disguised this spot.
There seemed to be no sign of an earlier train, which it would have been nice to use – since we had all arrived so early, and our 8:30 train, we were eventually informed, would be about twenty-five minutes late – due a signal problem in Sevenoaks tunnel. Eventually we boarded a filthy slam-door relic of the Connex fleet (this company had recently been stripped of its franchise – deservedly so). We sipped the last of our coffees and the others read their newspapers and we did not have much of a wait on the platform at Tonbridge before a Yalding train arrived. In the event we were only about ten minutes behind schedule when, at 9:48, we detrained.
The guidebook advised us to turn left out of the station car park and cross over to the ICI factory, but ICI had long ago divested itself of much of its empire and this was now a Syngenta factory. Ironically, Harold had just received a dividend check from this outfit.
We followed the sunny pavement of a busy highway, with a canal on our right, heading in a southeasterly direction. At the Olde Anchor pub, which was already open, we decided to use a footbridge across the canal to take advantage of this oasis – where each of us had a Coke. Tosh reported that the publican was a bit put out that she had walked across his newly mopped flagstones, but these footprints had already dried as each of us used the loos.
At a picnic table I took off the leggings of my Hawkshead trousers and lathered myself in sunblock. The Lees’ cousins were nice. Jenny Garst, as she still called herself, was a pleasant looking young woman whose sister Kate had walked a stretch of the LCW with us many years earlier. Jenny had recently given up a position in the communications department at the University of Maryland and her husband, Steve Libby, had resigned his post with a Chesapeake Bay environmental impact outfit. They were off on a long travel adventure. Both wore pigtails, though Steve, in his forties, sported one with streaks of grey, a color that had also infiltrated his goatee. They hadn’t spent much time in England and were full of the wonder of it all. They asked lots of questions about what we were seeing and they were quick to encourage me to make myself available as a trip planner for others.
There were, in fact, some ambiguities about the way forward now. The guide mentions a crossing of narrow Twyford Bridge but there were in fact three bridges here: the one to the pub, a second one that put us on the wrong side of the canal, and the motor road, which we now took over the flowing River Medway – making our way gingerly forward when the lorries had quit the scene.
On the other side we could see the first of a long series of Greensand Way signs and we took a half-left, heading northeast, across a dry meadow known, appropriately, as the Lees, and onto the road that lead us directly into Yalding village. I told Harold that the sun seemed more like early afternoon than late morning. This was a very nice place with a number of interesting and characterful structures, but it was also busy and we had to fight our way along the pavement and wait for the traffic to clear before following a left turn that lead us over the River Beult and uphill toward the war memorial. We turned right here, and passed some almshouses on a tarmac path.
I was a bit concerned about any re-routing that might have taken place as the consequence of housing development, but the area was well waymarked and so, after passing innumerable front lawns, we reached a footpath that took us back to the countryside again. It was a bit overgrown on this stretch but the way was clear underfoot and we soon reached a road, where we turned right – switching from northeast to due north for a steep climb toward the top of the Greensand Ridge. We were able to accomplish this ascent, which began amid the rural squalor of an impromptu dump, along a shaded and often wet sunken track. Much of this was quite muddy but our predecessors had created a dryer alternative on the right bank of the track – so no one had to put their boots in slime.
Near the top there was a break in the right-hand hedgerow and we were directed to turn to the east (our dominant direction for the day) to follow a path next to a hedgerow – walking on a more level route for a while, out in the open sun. There were wonderful views on our right now, over the Weald of Kent, and we often enjoyed this prospect as we made our way forward. A rather dry summer had turned all the grain fields yellow. Fortunately there was a cooling breeze blowing in our faces and this, and the occasional shelter provided by woodland and hedgerow, made the walking bearable. For some reason I was out in front for almost the entire day and I kept up a busy pace because that incorrigible double-booker, Tosh, had a clarinet lesson in Holburn at 6:00 (she had even packed this instrument in her knapsack to save time, but she refused to play the role of pied piper, as I had requested.)
We continued uphill to Buston Manor, a farmstead with a number of ancient buildings including some in the checkerboard brickwork typical of the 17th Century. Our route put us on open tracks as we passed the top of Malice Wood, much of which had been felled in a fashion that again recalled the Battle of the Somme. An additional casualty was a Greensand Way finger post, which we found on the ground, but I surmised we were to follow a trail that soon switched to the north for an additional climb amid the wheat – since the route, obviously lacking an appropriate right of way, had to circumnavigate much of the field – climbing up, turning right, then beginning a descent along the headland and an escape to a roadway.
We used the tarmac of this surface to walk down past Oak Hill Cottage but there was no GSW finger post at what I assumed was our turnoff and so we continued downhill looking for another likely spot. After a while I had to order a retreat (which meant more uphill) and I ventured onto the road to Barn Hill, finding a waymark at last.
Continuing forward we were soon in the precincts of one of the many orchards encountered this day (mostly apple and pear), keeping to the left of the laden branches (nothing ripe yet) and following a bank on our left. It was grassy underfoot but there wasn’t much shade and it was very hot. When things leveled off at the top we again encountered a piece of tarmac, using it to descend a bit and then escaping it by climbing some steps up to a continuation of our path.
We paused for water a number of times as we used tracks and pathways to continue our easterly progress. The guidebook warned of the possibility of agricultural diversions hereabouts but things were pretty straightforward on the ground, though, lacking any firm knowledge of the mileage covered so far, I was only able to announce that we had only one more paragraph to go before lunch. Tosh had poo-pooed the notion that it would take us three hours to complete our first five miles but, indeed it was just approaching 1:00 when we spotted Linton Church to our right, soon reaching the motor road into this village – where the welcoming Bull Inn was just below us. We entered its shady precincts and ordered our beers.
In a quiet corner (quiet if you ignored the occasional drone of anguish coming from an otherwise silent speaker overhead) we studied the menu. Tosh and I had sandwiches and the others ploughmans. My egg mayonnaise on brown bread came with some tempting chips, but my salad had been contaminated by the dread coriander. I drank a pint and a half of lager. The Lees had their coffee while each of us took a turn getting a squirt of hot water that emerged from a contraption above the loo sink with such force that both Tosh and I had to clean our glasses as well.
I took everyone else’s cash and paid with my credit card and at 2:00 we were ready to emerge into the hot sun again for the last three and a half miles of our walk. (The Kent County Council guide puts the distance between Yalding and Sutton Valence at 9.5 miles – so perhaps we had more than 3.5 to go.) Part two began with a scamper across Linton’s main road and a visit to the tombstones in the churchyard of St. Nicholas church. A path led us among these monuments and out to the drive to Linton Park, a stately home clearly visible down the road to our right. Further progress brought us to a second road, where we could here music-making at the nearby Boughton Monchelsea church.
I was pleased to note that there were far fewer variations in elevation on this stretch and, on the whole, things seem to go forward more smoothly and rapidly. Somewhere along here we had to climb into a field of goats – I’d never seen no many at one time. “What long ears that one has,” Tosh said. “No, Tosh,” Harold responded, “those are its horns.”
Again the guidebook warned of likely diversions but there seemed to no problems until we had passed Weirton Place Farm and reached tarmac. I expected a turnoff to the left but there was no sign, and, in an instant replay of this morning’s search, we continued downhill looking for an appropriate turnoff. I couldn’t find one at the next dirt track and so we had to climb back uphill and take our chances with the first option, which soon proved to be correct – a route taking us down to the same dirt track we had just abandoned. The track proved to be a Roman road and we sped along it, passing through several intervening hedgerows and over a footbridge to emerge at the edge of an orchard. We climbed up this to complete a dogleg to the right, one that brought us out to a farmstead at Chart Hill, where we collapsed for a rest and some water.
After our rest we continued along Chart Road, where, to my surprise, we were asked to turn left past the entrance of a prep school and then into a road heading for Chart Sutton’s St. Michaels and All Angels church. As we continued to the north of the church I noticed a GSW marker inviting us into the churchyard but I had my doubts –taking the precaution to peek over the gate where I was able to confirm that this sign was for the benefit of westbound walkers only – and that we could continue our easterly trod to emerge on the A274 almost exactly at the Sutton Valence bus stop, one that I thought we might use to begin our homeward journey. It was just going 4:00.
I had done some research on the Internet and had even downloaded Arriva’s schedule for the number 12 service between Maidstone and Headcorn – both of which had direct rail links back to London. I consulted this schedule now and discovered that the first bus was likely to be the 4:10 heading for Headcorn – so we crossed over and continued downhill to locate the new bus stop and wait. Unfortunately, the King’s Head seemed to be undergoing conversion so there was no shelter here and we were pretty much in the sun – though we could get half of our bodies into the shadows of an ivy-covered wall. Tosh wandered off to investigate the Hair Theatre beauty parlor.
The bus was about five minutes late and it was full of school kids – in various stages of shedding their uniforms. Our ride cost £1.90. Tosh, in her Sherpa Tenzing goggles, quite disconcerted a little whey-faced redheaded girl by quizzing her about the last week of the school term. The driver entered the forecourt of the Headcorn Station and I soon discovered, while buying my ticket, that we had only five minutes to wait for a train. We all used the loos and then climbed a bridge to get to the other side. Here we discovered that our train would be seven minutes late.
Aboard at last we settled in for what rest was available in a car filled with nine kids and six moms on their way to the Smoke to see a production of Les Miserables. One mum, perhaps French, passed out snacks, including a huge vat of popcorn, which one of the little boys used to manufacture popcorn face jewelry – which he applied delicately to his nose and forehead. Mum then began a tedious recital of the entire plot of The Glums until I wanted to catch Jean Valjean myself.
Harold and I both advised Tosh to use the Northern Line (it appeared she would make it to her lesson on time after all) but it took a while for this to sink in and we found her backtracking from the Bakerloo Line as the rest of us made our way to the northbound platform. The train was as crowded as the one we had endured during the Paris Metro strike in May – with the added bonus that at least the Brits had heard of soap. I was home by 6:30.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: