September 1, 1989: Borough Green to Beltring
Crowhurst Farm
Toby and I left the house at 7:30 on the morning of Friday, September 1, 1989. I wanted to use a weekday to return to the Wealdway because they were just then using the weekends to dig up the line to Borough Green. This meant that Dorothy would be tied up at work, and that we would be joined only by the Lees. For Tosh it was the last day off after fifteen months away from her post at the American School. She had a choral rehearsal near Waterloo at 6:00 – so that is why were starting so early.
Still on lead, Toby insisted on entering the Grantully exercise area of the park on our way to the tube stop. Although he responded almost immediately with his gift, he wouldn’t hold still while I was trying to pick it up for the red box and it fell off twice before I got everything stowed away. At Victoria, the guard closed the door on the leg of a blind man who was entering the train we had just abandoned; horrified commuters joined me in tugging at the doors while the poor chap cursed, “What does he think he’s playing at?”
Harold had already bought our tickets and I joined Tosh at the Quick Snack for a cup of coffee. Toby was crazy with excitement and tried to climb Harold’s leg. Our train left at 8:27 and we reached Borough Green at 9:10. Was this the last time we would use this station and its open skies loo? For me it was the sixth time I had been at Borough Green, an otherwise quite uninteresting village: twice while doing the North Downs Way, twice while walking the London Countryway, and now twice in connection with the Wealdway.
There was a good deal of road walking at either end of this ten-mile jaunt. We began by retracing our route to Platt. It was a lovely morning and I was soon able to take off my sweatshirt. (We had sun all day long, but the temperatures were rarely above 70.) It took us only about forty minutes to reach the Thatched House, with one coy plaque listing its inhabitants and a second offering a quotation from Catullus.
We had now reached a junction with the Weald Way itself, walking along suburban Potash Lane. Fruit trees were heavily laden and we each took an apple that had fallen onto the pavement. I also tossed a lost model airplane back over a hedge here. The road swerved to the left as we passed Kettle Cottage and we continued on road past Napps Farm (where a horse’s head decorated the front of a cottage). Several riders came up behind us just as we were about to abandon the road at last.
The dog was now unleashed for the first time and allowed to trot freely down the path, a nice track through the west margin of Mereworth Woods. There weren’t many tall trees in this wood, and it was obviously still being planted with trees that would provide coppice materials. We paused once in the middle of a mile and half stretch for some water, Toby drinking again from the yellow cap of my canteen. The Lees had struggled through their tart windfall apples but I gave up after two bites.
We left the woods at Gover Hill, a National Trust property, and descended to a roadside cottage where two chaps (including one named Rabbit) seemed to have a rural garage. A track continued in a southerly direction, down the edge of a fenced field with a “Bull Loose” sign. We did not see the animal but there were nice views of the Weald ahead and to our right. There was time to sample the abundant black- berries that we saw everywhere today. At the bottom of the hill we turned left, following a field margin, climbing an overgrown stile, and making our way over an uneven surface until we were joined on the right by a road.
An avenue of splendid beeches, promised in my new copy of John H N Mason’s guidebook, was no more – perhaps another victim of the hurricane of 1987. We followed a dirt track to its muddy junction with a road. Toby, who had been to the beauty parlor only two days earlier, was not allowed to rush headlong through the wet puddles. I picked him up and carried him around the edge, while a tethered Alsatian in the back yard of the Lodge house on the corner ran back and forth in great agitation. I wanted to leave the scene as soon as possible but Tosh insisted that Harold linger to admire the bear claws growing in the front garden.
Our escape was along a well-disguised nettle path, so overgrown that we had to assume the “I surrender” position for about a minute, finally reaching a stile that put us into an empty field next to a wire fence. At the bottom of the hill we could see a farm bungalow, our next landmark. The area immediately adjacent to this house was surrounded in strawberry fields and we needed all of our self-restraint not to help ourselves to the ripe red fruit. Mason suggests that we turn left at the bungalow and walk along the southern edge of a field – which we did – but we should have been directed into the farm lane (hidden by a tall hedge) because when we got to the end of the field there was only a wire fence. So we had to walk back as far as a blue portaloo and slip around the hedge into the road. At its end there was a kissing gate leading onto the green at West Peckham.
Our immediate objective was the Swan public house. It was just 12:00 as we sat down at an outside table. Three English boys and one dad were tossing around an American football on the cricket grounds – more cultural imperialism. Tosh had a shandy and Harold and I drank lager while we waited for food. I had scampi, peas, and chips, and the Lees had steak and kidney pie and chips. I assume there were shrimp somewhere within the deep coating of batter I was munching. Toby got a few chips and sat on the bench of our table.
Someone at the next table recommended a visit to the village Church, St. Dunstans. Tosh went over there first and came back with a booklet. All the vicars going back to the 13th Century were listed. One in the 17th Century was also named Rabbit. Harold and I went over to have a look, Toby letting up a howl at being abandoned. We considered going inside the pub for the Lee’s coffee (Toby was evidently welcome) but the clouds scudded by and it remained warm enough for us to sit outside. We were at the pub over an hour, a very delightful pause in an easy day’s walking.
We continued east through the village at about 1:10, turning south on a track that lead us along an orchard and up to a waymarked stile into a field. But here there was a problem. The direction of the waymark arrow and the guidebooks were all in agreement – due south. But the field was a jungle of green corn stalks. The beginning of a path made its way through three rows but thereafter there was no evidence on the ground of any way forward. We walked west for a bit, then east; there seemed to be no way forward. I climbed the stile and I could see places ahead where we needed to go – but all of the intervening ground was covered in corn.
I decided we just had to make our way forward through the jungle. I took a compass bearing and appointed country girl Tosh, who could rely on her childhood expertise in such fields, as our leader. Then we started forward. I don’t think we did any damage – not that the indifferent farmer deserved any consideration. We spread the stalks as we pushed forward and stepped into the next wave of green leaves slashing at our arms and faces. I was slowest, snagging the camera and the map case a number of times. Toby stayed close to Tosh and she was soon out of sight. We found her in a little clearing and were able to continue south for a bit along rather than through rows – the corn well above our heads at every step.
At last Tosh emerged at the edge of the field. A low fence separated us from a flock of sheep, grazing contentedly ahead of us. Before she realized this Toby had hopped over and was sending them on their way. We all started yelling at him to return and after a few seconds he circled back in triumph. “Hook him when he gets close,” I told Harold. “Where is he, where is he?” Harold wanted to know. “He’s heading straight for you.” I replied. (Sometimes I wonder what the Lees actually see on these trips.) The rest of us climbed into the field in question and began looking about for the Wealdway. We had emerged very close to the stile we were looking for. It was in the next field to the west but we walked through an open gate to reach this and inched along its southern border. Toby had a drink from a little stream as Harold was sneezing from the corn dust.
We passed under some electric wires and continued along the margin of some quarries to the A26. There were more sheep about so Toby remained on lead. I couldn’t see any path through our next field but fortunately the hay had been harvested. I took an easterly bearing and we tromped across it, discovering the escape stile rather easily. We passed a derelict cottage whose front yard was more strawberry fields. I put on my sweatband and hat but I was getting plenty of sun in the face as we turned southwest and followed a series of tracks around Peckham Place Farm and Crowhurst Farm.
The latter had a marvelous array of oast turrets and orchards heavy with red apples. We walked through the trees and at a footbridge paused for a nice rest in the grass. I tried one of the red apples; it was a bit sweeter than this morning’s sample. I threw an apple for Toby but he considered it only a ball and did not bite into it. A little later we had to make our way over an open ploughed field, not the best footing, heading due south in the sun toward the road at Kent House farm. Here the Wealdway headed west, soon to reach the Medway, but we had to follow the road to the east, on our way to the rural halt of Beltring. This journey, almost two miles, brought us along pear orchards (the windfall pears were still pretty hard) and into the village of East Peckham.
Tosh had been praying that a pub would be open because she wanted a lager. Sure enough (with the new licensing laws) the Addlestead Tavern was still serving at 3:15. She went inside to get us drinks and was followed out by the publican, who considered Iowa and California accents a charming rarity in rural Kent. We told him what a wonderful day we had enjoyed and he said he would make it even more wonderful. After we had finished our drinks (some of the same folk we had seen earlier at the Swan were here taking polaroid photos of dowagers on the back of old Ginger’s nearby motorcycle) the publican took us back of the tavern, unlocked a gate, and ushered us into his apple orchard. Here he invited us to take as many as we wanted.
I tried one; it was wonderfully sweet. At first we felt embarrassed about taking anything other than windfall fruit. But these, embedded in the nettles, were often past their best. Our host fetched some ladders for us but his groaning branches were easy to reach without assistance. After a few minutes we had stuffed our packs, locked up, and returned the key. Curious to end a walk with a heavier back than when you started. We thanked our friend warmly and headed off.
Most of East Peckham still had to be traversed, at first through a suburban estate, then along the main road with its butcher’s shop, groceries, and pubs. Toby was on lead for all of this now. The Lees were studying every flower garden and I noticed that they were soon well behind. I had been pressing on because I was still trying to make the 4:11. I turned south at the end of the village, crossed the road, headed over the Medway bridge, and turned off on a little road that soon paralleled the railroad tracks. But the Lees were still a long way behind and pretty soon I could hear our train. We watched it pull in and out, about five minutes before we arrived ourselves.
I was not too concerned, since I knew there was another one in half an hour. There was only a platform, not a roof, not a bench, at Beltring; we had to lie flat on our backs in a little shade. Tosh complained of this but I asked her if she knew any other station where she could lie untroubled on the platform like this. I spent some time pulling burrs out of Toby’s beard and eating some Swiss chocolate. The next train seemed to be about three minutes early. The conductor sold us tickets as we approached Paddock Wood. Here he had about a fifteen-minute wait for the Charing Cross train.
Tosh let it slip that she didn’t really have to be at her rehearsal until 6:30. I said that surely now, having lied to me about the needed return time, she could at last forgive me for telling our North Downs Way group, in 1983, that the Bearstead train left at 5:00 instead of 5:09. “I’ll never forgive you for that,” she insisted.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: