The North Downs Way: National Trail from Farnham to Dover
By Kev Reynolds
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About this ebook
Step-by-step route descriptions are fully illustrated with colour photographs and extracts from OS 1:50,000 mapping for every stage.
The guidebook comes with a separate map booklet of 1:25,000 scale OS maps showing the full route of the North Downs Way. Clear step-by-step route descriptions in the guide link together with the map booklet at each stage along the Way, and the compact format is conveniently sized for slipping into a jacket pocket or the top of a rucksack.
The North Downs Way is one of the easier national trails with a modest number of steep (but short) ascents and descents and long sections with no noticeable height gain or loss. Several historic sites including Neolithic burial chambers, Roman roads and Norman churches are passed and much of the route follows The Pilgrims' Way.
Kev Reynolds
A lifelong passion for the countryside in general, and mountains in particular, drove Kev's desire to share his sense of wonder and delight in the natural world through his writing, guiding, photography and lecturing. Spending several months every year in various high-mountain regions researching guidebooks made him The Man with the World's Best Job. Kev enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Cicerone from the 1970s, producing 50 books, including guides to five major trekking regions of Nepal and to numerous routes in the European Alps and Pyrenees, as well as walking guides for Kent, Sussex and the Cotswolds. 'A Walk in the Clouds' is a collection of autobiographical short stories recording 50 years of mountain travel and adventures. He was also the contributing editor of the collaborative guide 'Trekking in the Himalaya' and Cicerone's celebratory anniversary compilation 'Fifty Years of Adventure'. A frequent contributor to outdoor magazines, Kev also wrote and illustrated brochures for national tourist authorities and travel companies. When not away in the mountains, Kev lived with his wife in a small cottage among what he called 'the Kentish Alps', with unrestricted walking country on the doorstep. But he also travelled throughout Britain during the winter months to share his love of the places he wrote about through a series of lectures. Sadly, Kev passed away in 2021. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him and by many more he inspired through his writing and talks.
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The North Downs Way - Kev Reynolds
THE NORTH DOWNS WAY
by
Kev Reynolds
2 POLICE SQUARE, MILNTHORPE, CUMBRIA LA7 7PY
www.cicerone.co.uk
About the Author
Kev Reynolds is a prolific compiler of guidebooks whose first title for Cicerone Press (Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees) appeared in 1978 and is still in print. He has written and illustrated more than 50 books, including numerous guides to the Alps, a series on Himalayan trekking, various books on the Pyrenées, and guides to three major National Trails – the North Downs Way, South Downs Way and the Cotswold Way – as well as guides to day walks in Kent, Sussex and the South Downs National Park. A member of the Alpine Club, Austrian Alpine Club and Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild, Kev lives below the greensand hills of Kent – the centre of his spiritual universe. His passion for the countryside began almost before he could walk and remains undiminished after a lifetime of activity, and he regularly travels throughout Britain to share that enthusiasm through his lectures. Check him out on www.kevreynolds.co.uk
Other Cicerone guides by the author
Abode of the Gods
A Walk in the Clouds
The South Downs Way
The Cotswold Way
Walking in Sussex
Walking in Kent
Walks in the South Downs National Park
Walking in the Alps
Trekking in the Alps
Trekking in the Himalaya
Trekking in the Silvretta and Rätikon Alps
100 Hut Walks in the Alps
Tour of the Oisans: GR54
Tour of the Vanoise
Tour of Mont Blanc
Tour of the Jungfrau Region
Alpine Pass Route
Chamonix to Zermatt: The Walker's Haute Route
Écrins National Park
Walking in Austria
Walks in the Engadine
Walking in the Valais
The Bernese Alps
Ticino – Switzerland
Central Switzerland
Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees
The Pyrenees
Langtang, Helambu & Gosainkund: a Trekker's Guide
Kangchenjunga: a Trekker's Guide
Manaslu: a Trekker's Guide
© Kev Reynolds 2017
Third edition 2017
ISBN: 978 1 85284 861 3
Second edition 2011
First edition 2001
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed in China on behalf of Latitude Press Ltd
All photographs by the author
This product includes mapping data licenses from Ordnance Survey® with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. © Crown copyright 2017. All rights reserved. Licence number PU100012932.
Updates to this Guide
While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/861/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time. We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to updates@cicerone.co.uk or by post to Cicerone, 2 Police Square, Milnthorpe LA7 7PY, United Kingdom.
Register your book: To sign up to receive free updates, special offers and GPX files where available, register your book at www.cicerone.co.uk.
Front cover: Quintessential Kent: oasthouses on the Canterbury loop
CONTENTS
Map Key
Overview Map
Introduction
The North Downs Way
Walking west to east
Where to stay
Waymarking and accessibility
When to go
Getting there – and back
Using this guide
Along the way
The North Downs Way
Stage 1 Farnham to Guildford
Stage 2 Guildford to the Mole Valley (A24)
Stage 3 Mole Valley to Merstham
Stage 4 Merstham to Westerham Hill
Stage 5 Westerham Hill to Wrotham
Stage 6 Wrotham to the Medway
Stage 7 The Medway to Detling
Stage 8 Detling to Harrietsham
Stage 9 Harrietsham to Boughton Lees
Direct Route to Dover via Wye
Stage 10 Boughton Lees to Etchinghill
Stage 11 Etchinghill to Dover
The Canterbury Loop
Stage 10a Boughton Lees to Canterbury
Stage 11a Canterbury to Shepherdswell
Stage 12a Shepherdswell to Dover
Appendix A Useful contacts
Appendix B Recommended reading
Appendix C Route summary table
Cobbs Hill gives a view down to Water Farm and Stowting (Stage 10)
INTRODUCTION
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases… Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner – and then to thinking!
William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
I'm one with Hazlitt, when it comes to long-distance walks. Except, perhaps, my preference would be for an eight or nine-hour march to dinner, rather than just three. Spread the day thinly, I say; set out soon after breakfast with a cheese roll and an apple in the rucksack, dismiss from mind any thought of the next night's rest – and simply wander. Let the trail ahead guide your feet, leaving each of the senses free to absorb whatever the countryside has in store.
Walking the North Downs Way provides ample scope for the liberty to think, feel, do just as you please. Mostly the trail is clear, waymarking adequate, the spacious Downs edging a far horizon as they make that long, generous arc round the low-lying Weald, so that there are few (if any) demands to check the map or compass, and you can free the mind to drift with the clouds. Others have done just that, for generations.
‘From the Straits of Dover to Farnham,’ said Hilaire Belloc, ‘Nature herself laid down the platform of a perfectly defined ridge, from which a man going west could hardly deviate, even if there were no path to guide him.’ And we, going east, could hardly disagree.
The North Downs have acted as a highway since before Neolithic times. Because the Wealden forest was too dense and tangled to allow easy access, the high and broad-backed downland gave an opportunity to hunt, to travel, or to drive livestock from one pasture to another, and (much later) from pasture to market. Drove roads gave way to green lanes, while some of the footpaths and trackways adopted by the North Downs Way in the 21st century may well have been stamped out long before the Romans came to these shores. Now there's food for thought…
Today the line of the downland scarp is traced here and there by motorways and a high speed railway, and nothing can better underscore the frenetic nature of modern living than to view in the distance the haste of wheeled traffic while you stroll across a rabbit-cropped meadow, birds singing from a nearby spinney, as you let the hours drift slowly by. Walking day after day for a hundred miles and more is the perfect antidote to the stresses of workaday life; it's the best of all exercises, a relaxation, and a means by which to get life in perspective. And along the North Downs Way you can discover something of our ancestry, learn from the past and balance those lessons with the present.
The North Downs Way
Exploring every aspect of the Surrey Hills and Kent Downs Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs Way (NDW) National Trail offers the walker a very different experience from that on the South Downs Way (SDW), for example, for while the SDW challenges with some steepish ascents and descents, the NDW is much more gentle with fewer climbs, and where these are made, the gradients are generally much less demanding. There's more habitation along the North Downs Way but, surprisingly in view of the proximity of major centres of commerce and industry, and large residential areas (especially between Farnham and Detling), you meet far fewer walkers, and most of those you do meet are locals out exercising their dogs, or enjoying a circular walk. Although it is claimed that around half a million people a year walk sections of the trail, even in mid-summer it's perfectly possible to wander the NDW for long periods in splendid isolation.
1 Cowslips are common on the downland chalk
2 Bugle (Aguja reptans) appears in open meadows
3 May is when hawthorn blossom fills the hedgerows
The North Downs are more heavily wooded than their counterpart on the south side of the Weald. Some of the loveliest are the mixed woods of beech, oak and ash, carpeted with wood anemones, bluebells or ramsons in spring and early summer. And when the trail emerges from the woods there's often a surprise view to stop you in your tracks, the revelation of patterned field and meadow, or orchard, vineyard or hop garden spread below as if to underline the fact that in parts of Kent the Downs form a backing to the ‘Garden of England’.
That garden is explored in detail on a spur to Canterbury, while the direct route to Dover excites with the famous white cliffs plunging to the surf hundreds of feet below the footpath.
There are many historic sites along the Way: Neolithic burial chambers, Roman roads and Norman churches, charming villages and tiny hamlets, England's premier cathedral city and its busiest ferry port. There are bold stone castles and country cottages trim with thatch. There are literary connections with Jane Austen, Dickens, Joseph Conrad, George Meredith and JM Barrie – among others.
There are streams and rivers, ponds and lakes that catch the sun and dazzle its light, that attract wildlife and a rich diversity of plantlife too – anyone interested in natural history will find much to occupy them. And, of course, there are the contrasts of landscape that enrich each day's walk and make a journey along the North Downs Way a truly memorable experience.
The NDW is really the child of the much older Pilgrims’ Way, which ran along the base of the Downs from Winchester to the shrine of St Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. That route dates back to the 12th century, but the modern world has smothered large sections in tarmac, so a better, more peaceful and safer route was devised along the crest of the downland wall, although in some parts of Kent it descends to the Pilgrims’ Way where that original route is either a trackway or a mostly untroubled country lane. Instead of beginning in Winchester, it starts in Farnham on the Surrey/Hampshire border; and while the Pilgrims’ Way ends in Canterbury, the North Downs Way continues to Dover, and is now part of the E2 – a major European trail.
Walking west to east
As the quotation from Belloc suggests, the route could be tackled from Dover round to Farnham, but the journey described in this guide takes the opposite view, preferring instead to walk eastwards, as would the pilgrim. So for the sake of our modern-day pilgrim the National Trail, which was officially opened in September 1978, begins in Farnham and ends in Dover.
At Boughton Lees near Wye the route forks; one stem heading north to Canterbury, while the main