Some five months after completing Charing to Wye, we returned for our next leg of the NDW, from Wye to Etchinghill.
With a total distance of 11.2 miles, including two or three steep ascents, this was too demanding for Jacqui to complete in a single day. So we stayed overnight in Braborne, at roughly half distance.
Day 1: Wye to Braborne
We travelled in to London slightly early, since SWR trains were affected by an ASLEF overtime ban. As before, we rendezvoused at the Benugo Café on Waterloo Station’s Upper Level.
We enjoyed coffee and a second breakfast before crossing over to Waterloo East for the 09:32 Southeastern service to Ramsgate, scheduled to reach Wye at 10:56. Southeastern trains were not affected by the overtime ban.
Our route lay initially through Wye itself, passing along Bridge Street and Church Street until we reached St Gregory and St Martin Church. It has Thirteenth Century features, but was substantively remodeled in the Fifteenth Century, when neighbouring Wye College was built.
Wye’s name is derived from the Old English word for ‘shrine’, so it must have had some early religious significance, but it was also a fording place across the River Stour. Later it supplied medieval royalty with a place to stay: both Edward II and Henry VI were amongst its visitors.
Wye might have been the birthplace of Aphra Behn (1640-89) and John Locke definitely lived nearby for a while in 1679. Joseph Conrad wrote ‘The Rescue’ here in 1919.
The NDW passes through the churchyard, the concrete signpost placed beside a blue plaque commemorating two Protestants burned at the stake here in January 1557.
Wye College was covered with scaffolding. It was founded here in 1447 by Cardinal John Kemp, a local man who became Henry VI’s Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor.
By the 1890s it had become an agricultural college, soon joining the University of London. There was a short-lived merger with Imperial College in 2000 before the campus closed in 2009. Part is now being converted into housing.
Passing allotments, we admired a happy though vertically challenged scarecrow before reaching Wye School, a free school operating under the United Learning Trust.
Continuing along Wibberley Way, we were soon beginning our ascent of the Wye Downs, pursued by a small group of mums, kids and dogs. They took the shortcut, but we stuck to the NDW and rejoined them at the summit, just above Wye Crown.
This crown motif, some 55 metres tall and said to have been copied from a florin, was carved into the slope in 1902, to celebrate King Edward VII’s coronation. T J Young, a vice principal of Wye College, supervised a group of 35 students who completed the excavations over four days.
Above the Crown there is a commemorative Millennium Stone, bearing the arms of John Kemp and the inscription ‘Floreat Wye’.
We also spotted the NDW milestone, marking 101 miles completed and 21 miles still to go. It commemorates Warrick Rance (1966-2000) ‘who loved walking these Downs’.
The North Downs Way was officially opened at this spot, on 30 September 1978, by Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
When we arrived it was blowing a gale, and we were buffeted rudely while striving to justify the claim that one can see Dungeness Power Station, some 20 miles distant.
It remained chilly and windswept as we continued along this exposed section. There was some brief respite in the vicinity of Wye Nature Reserve, but we soon emerged on to the Broad Downs and began to navigate our way round the Devil’s Kneading Trough, a particularly steep-sided valley. A herd of deer sheltered sensibly on the valley floor.
Soon we were abreast of kennels – the Fetcher Dog Rescue Centre – whose occupants kept up an incessant barking until we were well past Cold Blow Farm.
Following a short road section, we found ourselves upon a lengthy gravel track. One of our number attempted a rather exposed comfort break, only to be interrupted by a youthful jogger sporting twin leg tattoos.
Shortly afterwards we followed a footpath into a large field of sheep and, finding some shelter from joggers and the stiff breeze in the lee of its hedge, remained here for lunch.
Soon after resuming, we were rewarded with far clearer views of Dungeness. Joining another extended gravel path, we passed above Brabourne, between the chalk pit below and Long Wood above.
The footpath down to the Village was unsigned and looked particularly steep, so we continued along the path until we reached Canterbury Road, which still made for an awkward descent.
Arriving at the Five Bells Inn shortly after three, we were speedily shown to our rooms. We’d pre-booked two of the four, each named after a Kentish hop or grape.
The rooms were furnished and decorated in a quirky, eclectic and often impractical manner. The copper bath in ours was pleasantly deep, but the toilet was in a cupboard and the tea-making facilities in a wardrobe. Noise from the bar wafted up through the floorboards.
We reassembled later that evening for a drink in the bar and a very pleasant meal in the restaurant.
Day 2: Braborne to Etchinghill
After very tasty full English breakfasts at nine, the waitress very kindly filled our flasks and we departed.
We passed through the Village, remarking the Norman Church of St Mary the Virgin, with its squat tower, set back behind houses, and were soon being rudely awakened by the steep climb back to the top of Canterbury Road.
At the top, on this NDW signpost, we spotted a marker for the E2 European long distance path, intended to run the 3,014 miles from Galway to Nice. However, the Irish section remains under development, so the starting point is presently Stranraer.
Rejoining the track we had left the previous day, we now descended steadily towards the road through Stowting, which means ‘place characterised by a mound’.
We initially observed the NDW signs directing us off the road and along the edge of several fields, only to return when we encountered several new-born lambs.
Continuing past the Tiger Inn we observed various Stowting belles emerging from their homes dressed in leggings – perhaps the local keep fit class was running that day.
Soon we were making a second steep ascent up Cobb’s Hill. At the top stile I met a runner coming down who had stopped to tie her shoelaces. She also sported some impressive tattoos.
‘Always use a double knot’, I quipped, breathlessly, as she resumed her descent.
We could see Stowting’s trout lake directly below us.
By now, I was thinking about our imminent arrival at the sign promised by the guide book: ‘Caution: lawfully permitted bulls may be kept in this field.’
But, when we reached the field in question, the sign had disappeared.
We’d hoped for a pleasantly situated bench at Farthing Common, where we might break for coffee, but found none to our liking. However, a dog walker promised Jacqui one a mile or so further on, so we continued beside a field of rape, the English Channel emerging into view ahead.
My relief was short-lived and premature as, shortly afterwards, we entered a second field with the bull-related sign. Fortunately we saw no bulls.
A little before Postling, we stopped at some tree stumps for our delayed coffee break, the bench not yet having materialised. Stupidly, I left the guide book behind and had to return to retrieve it.
The path passes above Postling, a quaint-looking village, dominated by the Church of St Mary and St Radegund which dates originally from the late Eleventh or early Twelfth Century.
Nearby Pent Farm was rented by Ford Madox Ford, the author of ‘Parade’s End’, from 1897 to 1898. It was then taken over by the aforementioned Joseph Conrad, who probably completed ‘Heart of Darkness’ here.
The guide book suggests that Christina Rossetti also resided at Pent, but I can find nothing to substantiate this claim.
Ford’s memoir of Conrad says there was a desk in the house once used by Rossetti, but that isn’t quite the same thing – the house was furnished with Ford’s spare furniture and Ford was distantly related to Rossetti.
A little way beyond, we watched a kestrel hovering for an eternity above a potential kill. A bullfinch perched on a NDW signpost a little further on.
We completed our final ascent up Tolsford Hill. In 1957, a Post Office Radio Station was built here, graced with a 70 metre reinforced concrete mast, to link our telephone system to Europe and receive the Eurovision signal.
Finally we descended past an army training area, pausing for a view of Summerhouse Hill before arriving at the edge of Etchinghill.
While waiting at the bus stop we chatted with a lady setting out to walk the dog belonging to the local pub.
Eventually we caught the 17 bus to Folkestone, despite its non-appearance on Google Maps, and from there the train back to London.
TD
April 2024
timdracup.com 