Desert Island Albums - 2018 [Adam's Music Reviews #2]

A few years ago I wrote a kind of 'Desert Island Discs' for this blog, listing ten of my all time favourite albums. As I was recently nominated on Facebook to do exactly this, I thought I'd post an updated list. I say updated; as you'll see the centre of gravity seems to be about 1971! The first three albums and descriptions are the same as in my 2013 list, being perennial favourites, whilst those further down the list are works that I've come to appreciate more since I last blogged about this. In keeping with the BBC Radio 4 'Desert Island Discs' tradition, I have made sure one classical album is included, replacing Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (from last time) with a bit of Gershwin. The musical musings and humour continue in '2021: A Musical Odyssey' - now available in digital and paperback formats.

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). 'Money' is about the only song on this album which receives regular airplay (usually edited because of the rude word), but the album spent 6 consecutive years on the UK album chart. All human life is explained in the lyrics. 'Time' is particularly apt. If I had to pick a second PF album it would be a tough choice between 'The Wall' and the totally bonkers 'Ummagumma'.
[High point for me: the segue from Time into Breathe (Reprise)]

The Beatles – White Album (1968). The sequel to Magical Mystery Tour (which in turn followed Sgt Pepper). On this album, the Beatles did whatever they felt like with no constraints towards commercialism. Styles vary from folk to Charleston to country and western to heavy metal, and 'Revolution 9' simulates the effect of waking up during a series of bizarre dreams, before Ringo lulls us back to sleep with 'Good Night'.
[High point for me: the segue from '...Bungalow Bill' into 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' (George's finest)]

Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (1965). Lyrically I think this is Dylan's masterpiece. You've got 'Mr Tambourine Man' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', but for me the highlight is the verbal deluge of 'It's alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding'. This album is half folk and half rock – both sides of Mr Zimmerman's oeuvre. For a second Dylan choice, 1996's 'Time Out of Mind' comes close, but so do about ten others!

Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (1971). The Stones emerged from their brief dabble with psychedelia with what I regard to be their three finest albums; Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and this one. Opening with Brown Sugar, which amazingly still gets radio airplay in these more politically correct times, the classics keep on coming. Wild Horses heralded further 70s ballads, but it is the extended jam of 'Can You Hear Me Knocking?' which really highlights the band's musicality. The final four tracks show that even at their most decadent, the Stones could be amazingly mellow. The album's conclusion, 'Moonlight Mile,' is a little-known classic that deserves regular airplay. Great for sitting round a campfire!

Led Zeppelin III – (1970). Whilst 'IV' had the all-time classic (Stairway to Heaven) and the world's most sampled drumbeat (When the Levee Breaks), 'III' is an album of two halves. The first half opens with the archetypal Zeppelin of Immigrant Song and includes the 7-minute blues epic 'Since I've been Loving You' as well as 'Out on the Tiles' (similar to 'Good Times, Bad Times' from the first album), but it is the relaxed folky second half that surprises, particularly Tangerine and That's The Way. Great for sitting round a camp-... oh I've done that one!

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). In younger days, I was a bigger fan of this album's predecessor, Hunky Dory, for it's eclecticism and Rick Wakeman's piano playing. However, for pure escapism, 'Ziggy' is a masterpiece. The first three tracks run together like a trilogy, as do the final three. The filling is equally good. Bowie starts out theatrically with Five Years and Mick Ronson's soaring guitar solos excel throughout. It's a bold statement, but this album provides a rare glimpse of something beyond the mundane.

Travis – Good Feeling (1997). I saw Travis perform as a warm-up band before they were famous and dismissed them as 'Oasis wannabes.' I was wrong. 'The Man Who...' gets all the plaudits, but this was the group's raw debut. Like so many on this list, it's an album of two halves. 'All I Want to do is Rock' is a simple, yet rousing opener and 'Tied to the Nineties' sums up how we may have felt at the time about what now seems to have been a 'classic' decade. The love songs come thick and fast at the end. Travis have never seemed so impassioned since, although once they unplugged the guitars and found a formula, they would achieve stardom.

The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies (1971). The Kinks' 'Arthur' album of 1969 has never been far from my CD player, but just a couple of years later came this little-known classic. The songs are something of a catalogue of disorders, dealing with alcoholism, anorexia and anxiety (and that's just the 'A's), but the subjects are always dealt with humorously, and Ray Davies even recommends a good old fashioned cure for all – 'have a cup of tea!' A folky feel pervades and sadly the pub that appears on the album cover is now in a state of disrepair. The opening track sums it up; it starts quietly, when the drums kick in they never sounded better and then it builds to Ray's deranged shout of 'I'm a 20th century man but I don't wanna be here.' Brilliant!

Photo: Myself outside the Archway Tavern which features on the album cover.

John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band (1970). Before we got the 'John as a saint' persona (which he never courted), we had this – a raging diatribe against all society's norms. This would have been something as a shock for those who remember the Beatles as lovable clowns from their early years. Working Class Hero is a classic, although I would advise a '12' certificate if you have kids. 'Look at Me' is a very nice introspective acoustic track, and in case anybody was hoping for a continuation of the Beatles career, John laments 'The dream is over' on the penultimate track. After some activism, John would settle into family life before his tragic demise, and comparing the relaxed feel of his final songs with this album is like comparing chalk and cheese.

George Gershwin – Piano Concerto in F / Rhapsody in Blue / An American in Paris (1924-1928). The version I have features Daniel Blumenthal on piano and may have even been the first classical album I appreciated. 'Piano concerto in F' always returns fatalistically to the same dramatic orchestral chord, with variations that include the bluesy second movement and a high-speed summary of all that went before (the third movement). An American in Paris includes the orchestrated sound of car horns before mellowing into its more famous romantic theme, and Rhapsody in Blue has an opening that is perhaps second only to 'Beethoven's fifth' when it comes to fame, but entertains with around twenty minutes of piano dominated themes.

Thoughts on Dream Phenomena

Apologies to those who enjoy the cycling narratives, etc. They will return as soon as the weather picks up. For now, I'm continuing with the 'psychology' theme of my last blog.

I've been interested in dream phenomena since a very young age. One of the first dreams I remember involved thinking I'd woken up in my bedroom aged about 7, only to find various animals appearing in my room, at first as a faint outline and then vividly. In the end, I got out of bed and went to open the door to the landing, only to hear my mother's voice say, “Don't come out. There's snakes out here.” Then I woke up.

How many childhood stories end with that twist? - Alice in Wonderland for a start! In fact, I recall being told at school that this was a kind of 'cop out' cliché ending to give a story when you don't know how to finish it. Well, it worked for Lewis Carroll.

I guess the opposite of the phenomenon of thinking you have woken up when you are still dreaming is what is known as 'lucid dreaming' - when one becomes aware of being in a dream. The natural reaction is to try to wake yourself up, but this invariably seems to fail. After a while, you realise that the best thing to do is to go with the flow and try to manipulate the dream itself for your own entertainment.

My grandfather used to state emphatically that he never dreamed at all, in spite of the impossibility of this, and indeed, for those who don't even remember their dreams such phenomena will sound almost like having a fight with your own mind. I remember as a child having lucid dreams and thinking I was forcing my eyelids open with my fingers, when of course I was laying motionless all along.

In later years, I used to have a similar experience on a regular basis, thinking I'd got out of bed to put the light on, only to find that I was still in total darkness. This was normally the give-away that it was a dream, so rather than panic, I used to open the patio doors and go for a wander around the village where I lived, until my brain was ready to wake me up. Of course, I had not left the safety of the bed in reality.

Winding the clock back to childhood, I remember staying at my grandparents' house and seeing a pneumatic drill being used in a dream while I was there, only to wake up and realise that the sound was in fact my alarm clock going off. My grandparents used to have a 'teasmade' (basically an alarm clock that wakes you up with a cup of tea) and perhaps I heard the kettle boiling while in a dream-state when I dreamed that I could see the tea infusing within the teapot! In both cases, it amazed me how quickly the brain can incorporate an external sound into a dream. In fact, what can seem like hours in a dream is really just a matter of seconds.

This may be because the dream contains the important moments of a sequence of events but not all the boring stuff in between. A dream tends to flick between one event and another more like a film does, rather than playing out an actual 'minute for minute' timeline. The Christopher Nolan film 'Inception' makes good use of this time distortion factor by creating months of time by means of a dream within a dream within a dream within... you get the idea!

Lucid dreams can be particularly fun when you're trying to prove to yourself that you're in a dream by catching your brain out. For example, trying to find the answer to a question that you know nothing about. This could mean picking up a book on an unfamiliar subject and trying to read it, or having a conversation with somebody who is supposed to be an expert on a topic that you know little or nothing about.

A lot of these ideas ended up in some of the stories in my Conundrum anthology, from somebody being stuck in a dream and unable to wake up to another character who invents a machine that can record dreams and ends up unable to distinguish them from reality. It's free to download from most online retailers if you fancy some unusual stories with a (usually dreamlike) twist.

One particularly disturbing experience is sleep paralysis. This occurs when a person is partially asleep and partially awake. Thus, the paralysis that stops a person from acting out their dreams is in full effect but the brain is active.

Far more scary sounding than it actually is is something called 'exploding head syndrome.' This seems to occur in a half-asleep, half-awake state, and involves hearing all kinds of explosions or loud sounds that seem to be coming from within the brain. It's a real thing (see Wikipedia) – I personally experience it sometimes when I first drop off to sleep and the sound normally resembles rushing waves over a high pitched ringing. Sounds bizarre? It is - not my idea of fun at all!

A more common parasomnia (occurrence within sleep) is somnambulism or sleep-walking. I had a brief dalliance with this in my teenage years. I used to wake up during the experience at the opposite end of the room to the bed, disorientated. When I got my first job of cleaning windows, I even woke up finding myself attempting to clean a non-existent window in my wooden bedroom door.

As you can see, I've had a lot of these experiences and I'm not sure if it's simply a case that if you suffer from fairly poor sleep you're more inclined to 'get the lot.'

But why dream at all?

The most sensible theory I've encountered is that dreams merely occur while the brain is filing away information from the preceding day. This would make sense to me – when we sleep badly, we cope pretty poorly with things – perhaps the brain is just in a state of confusion, like a teenager's bedroom. And you're expecting it to find solutions in that kind of chaos?!

What we experience as dreams mostly occur during periods of rapid eye movement (REM), where the eyes move around beneath the eyelids as if the dreamer was awake. This is one of five stages of sleep which vary from shallow to deep, with REM sleep as a kind of fifth 'bonus' stage.

All in all, I think remembering dreams adds a dimension to life that many are not even aware of. How much creativity has been inspired by dreams for example, from music to literature, and from films to art? The bible is filled with dream stories, so it would seem that the ancient people were far more interested in these night-time adventures than most folk are today. It's true that people believed that dreams contained premonitions, a view that few would share today, but this isn't to say that dreams have nothing to offer the dreamer at all.

The brain can often find solutions to problems while it's doing its filing, and the dreamer merely has to ask what the specific things within the dream mean to them personally and join up the dots. Sometimes the idea is helpful; other times just 'bleeding obvious.' I used to often dream of travelling on a train, only to find that there were no rails beneath it and then later there was no train at all – I was just walking along a disused track-bed. It seems fairly obvious to me that this implies a lack of a clear direction or a sense of not reaching any particular destination fast. Thankfully I don't have that dream now, so either I've found a direction or resigned myself to not having one!

Peculiarly, I have noticed that many dreams seem to exist in a time-warp. I hardly ever dream of being at my current home, or even the one before that. Time and time again, my dreams seem to take place in my parents' house (pre-2000) or my grandparents' house (pre-1997). My old jobs also seem to feature quite heavily too. I wonder if the experiences of early life merely have a greater impact on the mind and therefore the brain interprets everything through these memories.

Another thing with dreams is that the brain never seems to accurately replicate a real-life location. Normally the dreamer just accepts what the brain is presenting as reality, but upon waking realises that the scene was pretty far off the mark. I guess these dreamscapes are like the vaguely familiar pictures that the mind conjures up when imagining a location in a book - generally our personal idea of what is being described roughly takes on features of familiar places. I also find that people rarely look the same in dreams and that often a person can morph into somebody else completely half way through the dream without me even realising. Yet conversely, I find that music sounds astonishingly real in dreams, as do recognisable voices.

Whilst dreams are often dismissed as having little value these days, it does seem to me as though they give us a glimpse of how the brain actually works in interpreting the real world. On that thought, I'll let John Lennon have the final word on the matter, with a line from what is perhaps his most popular song (Imagine); - “People say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.”

Indeed, there are over seven billion others.

STOP PRESS: Adam Colton's short novel 'The Dream Machine (Labyrinth of Dreams' was released in 2020. It is a psychological sci-fi tale concerning a machine that can record dreams.

Thoughts on Spatial Synaesthesia

It's been a while since I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard if you're pedantic about your metaphors) - in Britain in winter there aren't a great deal of biking adventures to document (too cold and damp), so I'm going to talk about something completely different – a phenomenon known as synaesthesia (sometimes spelled 'synesthesia').

Ever since being a child I have always viewed numbers as positions on curving lines, and it was only about 12 years ago that I realised that most people don't actually do this. To me, the numbers one to twelve are represented by positions on a clock face (logically) and then the numbers 13 to 20 run vertically from the 12. Then each set of ten is a circle, loosely based on the clock face with the 6 at the bottom, but with the zero at the top. Each set of ten (21-30, 31-40, etc.) moves progressively to the left and then curving upwards from 60 to 100. The hundreds, thousands, hundred thousands, millions, billions, etc. and powers of ten follow the same pattern, except that the 1-6 on the clock face are upside down, so 600, 6000, 6 million, etc. occupy the central point of an S shape. I fear I could be losing my readership now, so I'll move on...

The practical implication of this is that I view every event in my life as a position, either located at the number which was my age at the time, or the number of the year at the time. If I think about my time at primary school in terms of my age, it occupies the clock face from 5 to 11; if I think of primary school in terms of the years (81-86), it occupies the right hand side of the '80s' circle, from zero to six. It may seem a bind to view things in this way, but it does make it very easy to remember such things as the years songs were released, as naturally they all have their positions too. Thus, I always relish the music round in a pub quiz!

It isn't just numbers that work this way. Days of the week, months of the year and the alphabet are the same. Saturday is always at the bottom of the circle for me and Tuesday at the top - the days run anti-clockwise. With the months (also anti-clockwise), the circle is a bit distorted - January is at the top right, then there is a long curve left and then down to August at the bottom left. Then the autumn months stack up vertically on the right hand side – well, it always feels uphill to Christmas, doesn't it?

Even the alphabet brings to mind a curve like an oxbow in a river. A-D occupy the first curve on the left hand side, E-R occupy the bulging middle curve and S-Z  take up the final curve on the right. As you can see, the letters aren't evenly spaced - there is both logic and no logic to this way of thinking!

Thanks to the Internet, I discovered that this mode of thought is called 'spatial synaesthesia.' It is thought that as babies, our senses are a mishmash of inputs, where sounds can be perceived as colours, words as smells, etc. Most people lose these cross-associations entirely, but it is thought that those who don't lose all of them are 'synaesthetes' (yes, that's a real word!). Thus some people associate certain numbers with colours. If you put a triangle of twos in a grid of fives, most people will struggle to see the pattern, but somebody with 'grapheme-colour synaesthesia' will see the triangle straight away, as it will appear a different colour to them. Some people even associate personalities with different numbers. As a child, I can remember thinking of the number 5 as very mischievous (along with the colour yellow) and the number 7 as very respectable, but for me, these associations no longer exist.

I have never had the 'seeing sounds as colours' experience myself (although I believe some folk try to induce such phenomena illegally), but some of my favourite music albums do always bring to mind a shade. Sorry, my references are very old, but Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album and The Beatles' Abbey Road (both from 1969) both bring to mind a dark green shade to me. But if you think about it, do we not all associate certain colours with certain moods, and therefore the music that invokes such moods? There is a whole genre called 'the blues' after all.

Some synaesthetes see all kinds of patterns when they hear music, which isn't anything vastly different from the kind of graphics you can get your computer to generate to accompany music. Indeed, certain songs do bring to mind a kind of illustration to me, such as the guitar noises in the creepy middle section of Pink Floyd's Echoes invoking thoughts of strange spiky lines springing up from the ground (another 'Stone Age' music reference for you). The musician Richard D James (aka Aphex Twin) is known to have been inspired by his synaesthesia (as well as lucid dreams) to have created soundscapes such as those in his 1994 album 'Selected Ambient Works Volume II.' The Russian author Vladimir Nabokov was also a known synaesthete by the way.

Back to the curving lines again, the songs on albums I've had a long time always seem to be arranged down one side and back up the other, like a loop, or alternatively as two parallel sides joined across the middle like the letter N. I guess younger synaesthetes would not have these perceptions as modern music formats don't have 'sides' in the way that vinyl records or cassettes did.

This may all seem very odd to somebody without such neural connections, but to a certain extent, I think everybody experiences a kind of synaesthesia when they dream. The brain is filing away information during dreams, but in a way where everything is jumbled up. People from different eras of your life can intermingle for example, and places never seem quite the same as in reality. An experience I sometimes get is one of waking up laughing at some words that were said in a dream, but when I recall the words, there is nothing remotely funny about them. It's as though they have different associations to the subconscious, and therefore their own code of humour.

Well, I could write an entire article about dream phenomena too, but we'll leave it for now. I could be back with something along those lines soon, or indeed another biking write-up when we've moved a little downward and to the left along the circle of months!

The Brampton Valley Way & Northamptonshire - a Cycling Perambulation

I've got another cycling narrative for you, and this time we're off to exotic Northampton. Having undertaken this trip in mid-September, the weekend in question seemed like the last chance to undertake a short camping adventure in 2017.

I alighted from my train in England's second biggest town without 'city' status after Reading, although locals will still tell you that the epithet 'largest' belongs to Northampton. Heading north along suburban roads, I spied a corner shop. However, with none of those 'animal fat' fivers and tenners in my pocket, my options were a 50p charge for using a card or a cash machine that charged £1.85. Considering I only wanted a can of soft drink, I ditched my own advice to support the little man and headed for Asda instead. The shame!

I then took a path behind some houses and industrial units out to a road, bridged the railway and picked up the Brampton Valley Way, -an old track-bed I'd cycled this time last year and wanted to revisit. According to Wikipedia, the railway line closed relatively late in 1981 – I guess we can't blame Dr. Beeching for this one.

There are lots of little viaducts over fields on the route and a couple of miles where the path runs beside a preserved section of the line. The scenery of gentle rolling hills is 'pleasant in an unspectacular way,' to apply William Cobbett's quotation about my own local area in Kent to a different county. However, I soon had to shelter beneath my tarpaulin on a bank during a shower. My blind optimism about the weather had failed me. After the weekend I would know once and for all whether to trust the forecast and if a high of 14 degrees and a low of 7 degrees is tolerable for my basic kind of camping.

Although I'd ridden through them last year, the two tunnels of 400m+ were still a bit scary, with no lighting as you head towards that distant arch of light at the other end. However both paled into insignificance compared to the pitch-black Netherton Tunnel on the Birmingham Canal network which I cycled last year – at 1.7 miles, this really got the pulse racing. I did pass one other cyclist as I rode through, so perhaps I'm not the only one who relishes a ride where you see absolutely nothing!

While I was telling you about that, we've passed into Leicestershire and arrived at Market Harborough (roughly twenty miles north from my starting point), I headed for Wetherspoons. I enjoyed this pub much more at 5pm, than last year when I got there mid-evening and found it to be packed to capacity. I sat in a booth, charged my phone, dried my tarpaulin and wrote up my notes on the journey so far. As time progressed the voices around me got louder and the language grew more colourful. Time to go!

I picked up a lane eastward which was like a switchback ride with all its undulations. The views were pleasant as dusk fell, and I rode a brief semi-circle through the small town of Desborough. Now heading south, the next town I reached was Rothwell, where I got a delicious kebab and some supplies in a shop. A woman was having an argument with herself as I ate sitting on a wall. I suppose it's one way to make sure you always win in a debate! The town was certainly lively for a place of its size and I had a wander around the square, pausing outside the church to listen to a brass band inside.

It was dark as I rode the lane towards Kettering (north side). After passing a huge industrial building that reflected the streetlights around it, looking like a streak of sunset in the sky from a distance, I took a gravel path which curved into the woods, and found a place to camp. I was a little worried as the cold ground was sapping my heat by 10pm and the temperature was to drop another four degrees. Wearing my coat in the sleeping bag solved this, although the drips from the trees weren't particularly welcome.

The following day I got up at about 7.45 and rode into Kettering. There was a handy cycle path by the road nearly all the way to the centre, which on an Sunday morning was as silent as one of those tunnels. Lacking imagination, I headed for McDonalds for breakfast. Beyond, my ride presented me with a long climb up from crossing the River Ise to the little town of Barton Latimer.

My route back to Northampton mostly consisted of one long, relatively flat lane, which would put many Kent B-roads to shame in its directness. The ride to Little Harrowden and past Sywell Airfield was stunningly quiet apart from the odd passing cyclist, but once I hit the edge of Northampton this all changed. The five-mile, gradually descending suburban road to the centre reminded me of the A5 going into London.

Sadly, my reliance on big chains continued as I headed for another Wetherspoons for lunch. This one was called The Cordwainer (which means shoemaker) and I sat upstairs and tucked into an avocado bagel and salad. An old man had joked about being a gentleman for not pushing in front of me at the bar. Obviously the requirements for being a gentleman these days are less stringent than of yore! The lack of a queuing system is a common problem with these large pubs (I've walked out my local branch before). The bar steward usually asks 'Who's next?' and about a dozen people reply. The largest one then invariably gets served first.

There were no such problems in Northampton on a Sunday lunchtime, and after a couple of pints I merrily wended my way to the station and put the lid on my camping trips for 2017. There are plenty more to read about in my book, 'Stair Rods and Stars.' The digital editions of most my books are now free, so if you've enjoyed this narrative, why not have a look on Kindle, iBooks, etc. and go 'the full cycle?'

The New Forest & Bournemouth - a Cycling Perambulation

The journey from Kent to the New Forest by train is something of an epic, although remarkably cheap if you travel along the South Coast via Brighton and Southampton. I alighted at Brockenhurst, with the feeling that astronauts must get after travelling to the moon and first setting foot on the lunar landscape as I headed south along a B-road. My aim was to cycle a former railway track-bed to Ringwood, but a sign said 'Residents Only' (or words to that effect) at the point where it left the road. So I decided to ride a big square to get onto the route further west, encountering my first New Forest ponies under a bridge. I then recapped the eastern end of the track-bed and it turned out that perhaps the sign had been aimed at vehicles rather than bikes, for I passed many other cyclists oblivious to this prohibition.

Resuming a westward course, after a few miles I reached the remnants of a station where an elderly couple warned me so that I didn't ride over an adder. The old man remarked that it looked beautiful, but having never been a huge fan of snakes I politely voiced a counter-opinion! We watched it slither away into the long grass, and breathing a sigh of relief, I continued. Yet, within a few minutes of resuming my ride, I nearly rode over another one. The snake coiled upon itself in defence and I vowed to get well out of this area before thinking about camping. Later, when I crossed a lane, the way it curved up the hillside reminded me of the shape of the snake, but I found this much more attractive (sorry, nature lovers!).

At the end of the track, I turned right towards the village of Burley and took a short cut up Honey Lane (a pleasant name for a muddy track). About six ponies were coming the other way, like a family out for an afternoon stroll. After more lanes and a short resurgence of the track-bed, I headed into Ringwood. A hiker asked me for the very specific amount of £1.50. Thinking he might be homeless I took pity, but afterwards felt that I might have been conned. It's always so tricky to know what is the right thing to do in these situations.

To the south of the town, the railway route continues westward, now named the Castleman Way (or Castleman Corkscrew due to its circuitous route to take in as many towns as possible between Brockenhurst and Poole). It bridged a few rivers and was a straight, lightly forested route, at times running as two trails side by side.

I decided to stop at a pub in the village of West Moors. Relaxing with a pint, I took in the vibes of the radio station which was playing non-stop rock classics. The bar staff said they receive mixed opinions from their customers but thanked me for my complimentary feedback (guitarist's pun intended). I enjoyed a healthy salmon dinner before moving on.

The route beyond deviated from the old rail route, using various woodland tracks, eventually steering me onto the main road into Wimborne Minster. At Leigh Common, I headed into the woods in search of a camping spot. There was a trail on a wooden platform over wetlands – the longest of its kind that I've seen. I eventually made my bed beside a fence. Some young men in fields nearby seemed to be getting drunk, and when they went quiet, some noisy teenage girls started shrieking with merriment. Naturally, I kept as inconspicuous as possible until my eyelids grew heavy and the revelry subsided.

It amazed me that the footpath behind the fence was busy even before it got light. After some dozing, I packed everything away and rode into Wimborne Minster, choosing a Polish cafe for a traditional English breakfast. I had a look inside the minster before taking a course southward from the town, accidentally frequenting the ladies' - twice! The funny look I got the second time was what gave the game away.

Rejoining the track-bed, which now began a long descent towards Poole, tiredness began to encroach, so I stopped for a rest in a wooded glade near where the path bridges the mighty A35. I used my rucksack as a pillow and actually dozed, dreaming in sounds only (strange things happen when asleep in the woods!).

After the bridge there were some estate roads (these look the same in every town) and soon after I got a bit lost, finding my way through Upton Park, to a path which ran along the top of Poole Harbour. The harbour is often claimed to be the second largest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. This upper part is also a nature reserve (read 'covered with algae'). When I reached Poole 'Old Town,' I decided to explore. The Lower High Street was very quaint, but further up were all the usual stores (like those suburbs – the same in every town – except in my home town where far too many shops are displaying 'To Let' signs to befit the 'boom town' epithet often bestowed upon it). I returned to a pub in the quaint part and took in the vibes of the beer garden, after watching an elderly couple drink up rapidly and leave having been blasted with rave music from the juke box inside. I knew it was a mistake when they came in and sat right beneath the speaker.

The next part of the ride along Poole Harbour was the day's high point, with views to Brownsea Island (site of Baden-Powell's first scout camp) and the Purbeck Hills across the water and a pleasant green ever to my left on the landward side. However, disappointment followed at the end of Shore Road – I wanted to ride the sea-wall to Bournemouth but bikes aren't allowed on the esplanade in July and August. An RNLI collector ventured, 'You're probably wondering why we are here?' I replied, 'To be honest I'm wondering if I can bike along this sea-wall!' His response was informative, so I put some coins in the bucket before pounding eastwards along the leafy cliff-top roads instead, gently curving, with a suspension footbridge over one of the 'chines.'

I breezed through Bournemouth and on to Boscombe, where I saw the first signs of High Street decline on this trip. I imagine that Internet shopping is to blame for the traditional High Street's struggles along with the perpetual recession and the continued policy of lower tax for businesses locating out of town. I also saw a 'Doctor Who' style police box at the start of the pedestrian area. Maybe such a TARDIS could whizz me back to a time when our High Streets were buzzing!

The rest of the ride took me through interminable suburbs as far as some woodland near the village of Hurn. Here I made the pivotal decision to go home. The threat of rain for most of the next day was one reason, but I was also nearing the New Forest again; as the afternoon progressed I would soon need to find a camping spot and there is a ban on wild camping across the whole of the New Forest (and who would want to with all those snakes?). So another adventure drew to a close. There are plenty more to read about in my book, 'Stair Rods and Stars.' The digital editions of most my books are now free, so if you've enjoyed this narrative, why not have a look on Kindle, iBooks, etc. and go 'the full cycle?'

Hamstreet, Kent - Saxon Shore Walking Routes

[Transcript from original web page. Last updated April 2023]

The information on this page may be freely copied for use on walks.

The village of Hamstreet is surrounded by public woodland including Hamstreet woods, an area of special scientific interest renowned for the presence of wild service trees and nightingales. 

The routes in this guide explore the contrasting elements of the local area, including Romney Marsh and the banks of the Royal Military Canal. 

Hamstreet is a great base for walkers because of its railway station, coffee shops in both the High Street and garden centre,  fish and chip shop, Indian restaurant, shops and Duke's Head pub. Note: wordings highlighted in bold are reference points that appear in different walks.

Ruckinge Loop (5 miles) 

A variation on this route was featured in the 'Top 50 best summer walks in Britain' in the Independent newspaper.

Head towards Hythe along the one-way street from the village crossroads and take the second turning left onto Bourne Lane. At the end of the lane, bear right, through the gate into Hamstreet Woods. 

As you enter the woods the Saxon Shore Way bridges a stream and bears sharp left. Then after around a hundred yards it forks right. Stay on the grassy right-hand-side, as the surfaced path on the left eventually deviates. The trail runs right through the middle of the woods, gradually climbing for around a mile until it reaches a gate at the top of the woods. Go through the gate and continue up to the T-junction with Gill Lane byway. 

Bear left and climb out of the woods along the byway. The Saxon Shore Way then exits right along a farm track, while we continue ahead on Gill Lane (Greensand Way). 300 yards later you will reach a junction; turn right taking great care as this lane is narrow and bounded by hedges.

Several hundred yards later, you will reach another junction with a gravel surfaced byway leading straight ahead. Follow this all the way into the woods, around the sharp bend and on for around a mile descending to meet the B2067 near Herne Farm.

Turn right, walking westward along the road for a quarter of a mile to Ruckinge village. This is a historic settlement because of its smuggling connections; it is believed that the notorious Ransley brothers were hanged at Penenden Heath, Maidstone and buried in Ruckinge churchyard (St Mary Magdalene). 

Our route turns left at the T-junction after the former Blue Anchor pub to pass the former chapel. Feel free to take an optional detour along the B2067 for 300 yards to visit the parish church (if you enter the churchyard, look for the footpath on the left-hand-side of the church and follow this roughly due southeast down to the lane). 

Cross the bridge on the lane over the Royal Military Canal. It is now just a simple matter of turning right to follow the canal path back to Hamstreet. When you reach Hamstreet Bridge around a mile and a half later, turn right, and follow the road past the garden centre (including coffee shop) back into the village. Just after passing Mountain Farm on your right, there is a footpath on your left, which runs parallel to the road behind the hedge as you enter the village – a quiet alternative across a field and Pound Leas recreation ground to the car park in The Street, beyond which you will pass the Victorian 'Church of the Good Shepherd' (former chapel).

Bilsington Loop (7 miles) 

Follow the route of the ‘Ruckinge Loop’ as far as Herne Farm, Ruckinge. (If you wish to try an alternative route into the woods, head south from Hamstreet Crossroads and turn left down the alleyway opposite the church. Follow this over the little bridge, past the bowling green and straight over the road to pass the duck-pond and climb through a housing estate. Turn left when you reach a T-junction of estate roads, and when the road reaches a dead end, turn left into the woods. This narrow path curves right and soon becomes wider and dead-straight (Main Ride). Follow this all the way to the end where it meets Gill Farm Track. Turn right to continue the Ruckinge Loop up to the gate at the top of the woods and on as instructed above).

When you reach Herne Farm, turn left along the B2067 and walk very carefully until the sharp left-hand bend. Take the public footpath ahead and slightly left across the field (use the left-hand edge if blocked), passing the house at the top of the hill on your left. Head for the corner next to the road as you descend. Cross the stile into the next field and continue along the left-hand-side. At the bottom of this field, cross the bridge over the ditch and continue along the left-hand-side of the next field, emerging onto the B2067 via the gate.

Turn right, following the road up the hill into Bilsington village, taking great care. Here, the pub is the White Horse and the church is dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. The obelisk is a monument, built in 1835, to honour a local landowner, Sir William Richard Cosway, who was famed for his generosity towards his workers but tragically died in a coaching accident. Bilsington was voted the fifth best postcode area in the UK to live in in 2006.

Turning right at the crossroads, follow the lane down the hill past the cricket field on your right, with an optional detour up the track on the left to visit the church of St Peter and St Paul (if you go through the gate opposite the church door and over the stile, you can rejoin the road at the bottom of the hill via the footpath roughly due southwest across the field). 

Take the footpath on the right just before the canal bridge to follow the north bank to Ruckinge Bridge and then swap to the south bank to continue to Hamstreet Bridge, turning right to follow the road past the garden centre back into the village.

Orlestone Loop (2 miles)

Head towards Hythe along the one-way street from the village crossroads and take the second turning left onto Bourne Lane. At the end of the lane, pass through the swing-gate and continue straight ahead. Heading north along the left-hand edge of the field, you will soon reach the railway embankment, climb this and cross the line carefully. This Ashford to Hastings line is one of only two remaining diesel lines in the provincial South-East.

Descend the embankment to the next field, and follow the footpath diagonally across, roughly northward. You will climb to pass underneath the bypass, opened in 1994.  Bear right after the underpass and continue along left-hand-side of the next field. Continue as you pass a house and tennis courts on your left. Next you will pass a pond behind St Mary's Church where the path bears slightly left to continue across the field.

You will soon reach a crossroads of footpaths. Turn sharp left at the post to take the path which is slightly diagonal across the field to reach the lane. Our walk continues straight across, but those wishing to explore the church can detour left at this point. This hamlet, centred around St Mary’s church was once the centre of population. When the flat-lands of Romney Marsh were drained, the population decamped to the more southerly location of Hamstreet, then known merely as ‘Ham’. It was the coming of the railway in 1851 that ultimately led to the growth of this village.

Our footpath crosses a lawn and passes to the left of a pond to descend across the next field to the old Ashford Road. Turn left and return to the village centre down the hill on the pavement, passing the school and railway station. If ever the final fields are blocked, the lane from St Mary's Church also meets the old Ashford Road where a left turn can be taken back to Hamstreet. 

Capel Road Loop (4 miles)

Follow the route of the ‘Orlestone Loop’ on the first leaflet as far as the crossroads of footpaths just after passing behind Orlestone Church. For this route, continue straight ahead, briefly passing through woodland and emerging into a large field. The path soon bears diagonally right across the field out to Capel Road where you turn right. If you are unable to cross the field, continue ahead and slightly left past the two trees in the middle of the field and look for the hole in the hedge to emerge onto the road and turn right to walk along it.

Walk along the road until you see a small public footpath on your right (note this is around 300 yards beyond the wide entrance to the woods). This path leads into Packing Wood, which was estranged from the rest of Hamstreet Woods when the bypass sliced through the middle in 1994.

Upon reaching a wide grassy ‘ride’, turn right to follow this through the coniferous forest for half a mile. At a staggered junction of paths turn right onto a grassy public footpath and then right again a hundred yards later to head back into the trees. Continue on this public footpath for the next half a mile, out of the woods and on across the field, back to a familiar crossroads of paths, where you will be able to continue onward and slightly left to the lane at Orlestone to complete the ‘Orlestone loop’ back to Hamstreet.

Warehorne Loop (3 miles)

Head towards Tenterden along the B2067 from the village crossroads. After passing beneath the arched railway bridge and the road bridge, climb the steps on your left. A short distance along this stony path, there is a stile to your right. Climb over and follow the Saxon Shore Way in a straight line towards the church tower across the fields. Passing through a number of swing-gates, the route descends into a dip and climbs again to reach a stile surrounded by bushes at the top right corner of the final field. Cross the stile and turn right when you reach the lane.

The sixteenth century Woolpack Inn is connected to the church of St Matthew by an underground tunnel. This was built and used for smuggling, a common activity in this area in centuries past.

Take the path, left, via the churchyard and walk around the west side of the building. If you imagine a straight line right through the church bearing slightly left, this is roughly the route of the footpath down to the lane via the bushes to the left of the house at the bottom. When you emerge, cross the level crossing and continue down to Warehorne Canal Bridge. The Royal Military Canal was built as a line of defence against a feared invasion from Napoleon. A footpath follows its banks for the full 28 miles from Cliff End (near Hastings) to Seabrook (near Folkestone). 

To return to Hamstreet, cross the first stile on your left just before the bridge and head diagonally left to take the footpath due northeast across the fields. [If the path is blocked, an alternative route is to follow the canal path eastward, crossing the A2070 and turning left when reaching the bridge near Hamstreet Garden Centre.] After a while the path passes through a swing-gate on your right to continue northeast. Look carefully for the bridges across the dykes. The telegraph pole in the middle of the distant sloping field is a good reference point to check you are on course although you will have to deviate around the marshy vegetation at times. You will eventually reach the Hamstreet bypass; cross this and continue. Please be warned that the sections running beside the bypass can often be very brambly. The path then crosses another field and descends to the village, passing a farmhouse to the left and bridging a dyke and narrowly passing a Southern Water compound to reach a short lane back out to the High Street.

Kenardington Loop (5 miles) 

Use the previous route to get to Warehorne, but continue along the lane past the church and Woolpack Inn. Take the drive to a farm on the left, and almost immediately take the Saxon Shore Way through the swing-gate on the right, across the field. As you descend across the middle of the sloping second field, head for the right-hand-side of the row of trees at the bottom. Pass through the swing-gate and head southwest, diagonally across the field towards Kenardington church, lining yourself up with the bridges that cross the dykes. At this low point, it is easy to realise why the Saxon Shore Way is so called, for these fields would have been covered by water many centuries ago.

It is a gentle climb to St Mary’s, which occupies the site of a Saxon camp that was stormed by the Danes in the ninth century. Follow the pathway that bears right from the church door, and as you leave the churchyard, you will notice a footpath on your right. Follow this along the fence and eventually you will descend via a series of steps to a lane. Turn right, continuing around the corner and on for several hundred yards until reaching a T-junction.

Turn right and walk along this lane up the hill. Just before you reach the junction with the B2067, there is a path / alleyway on your right; follow this past the houses and eventually parallel to the B2067, until you have to emerge to continue eastward along the road. Just by the village entrance sign for Warehorne, you can use a remnant of the old route on the left-hand-side past the former World's Wonder pub. 

When you reach the B-road again, you will see a concrete drive on the opposite side. Proceed along this for around 200 yards until you notice a stile on the left-hand-side. Cross this and walk across the field; as you continue there should be a house just to your left. Be warned: there can sometimes be tall weeds or crops to negotiate. After passing the house, the path enters another field and climbs, with a row of bushes to the left, until reaching a familiar swing-gate, with just two fields to cross back to Warehorne on the Saxon Shore Way, from which you can continue the previous walk via the churchyard down to the canal.

Hamstreet Village Circumnavigation (2 miles)

From the crossroads head west along Warehorne Road. After 200 yards, you will notice a public footpath on your left running between two houses. The path is channelled around a couple of bends and across a bridge, eventually coming out onto a drive. Turn right to follow the drive around the left-hand bend and out to the High Street.

Cross the main road using the traffic island and turn right. When you are nearing the village sign (pause to read the plaque), look for a passageway on your left. Take this footpath around the back of the houses and cross Cock Lane, continuing straight ahead along the edge of the playing field and across the loop of Fairfield Terrace housing estate. The path continues directly onward up the driveway and into the field, right over the top of Cotton Hill and down the other side. Don’t forget to enjoy the views both ways at the summit.

The path goes through the gate to the right of the farmhouse at the bottom of the hill and after the stile, turns diagonally left to emerge onto the B2067 via a stile beneath a tree. Turn left to head back towards the village along the road, climbing the hill, taking great care. Just beyond the brow of the hill, you will notice a track-way on your right, signed ‘Orlestone Rise’. Wander up this track and at the end on your left you will find the entrance to Hamstreet Woods.

Follow the path (known as School Ride) into the woods, descending steeply. The path crosses Main Ride and descends some more, gradually curving right to end at a T-junction with ‘Stickles Path’; turn left to descend and cross the bridge, exiting the woods onto Bourne Lane. Pass through the swing-gate to your right and then another swing-gate immediately left. The path now heads along the left-hand field-edge. You will pass through a housing development and then climb a slope to the station. Turn left, walking along the nearest platform and take the steep ‘station exit’ slope down to the road and back to the crossroads on the pavement.

Marsh Loop (4 miles)

This walk is an introduction to Romney Marsh. Head south from the village crossroads signed ‘New Romney’, passing through the High Street and on past the garage. Just past the garden centre you will bridge the Royal Military Canal. Go through the gate on your left and follow the towpath along the canal for two thirds of a mile. 

Take the byway on your right (just before reaching a pumping station) and after several hundred yards you will cross a bridge where the main route bears sharp left. Turn right at this point to follow a grassy byway along the edge of the ditch. You may have to climb over a few gates during the next two thirds of a mile.

Eventually, you will notice a wide wooden footbridge to your right. Cross this and follow the footpath ahead along the left-hand edge of the field. Be warned: the grass can be quite high and weedy here at times.

When the row of bushes ends, bear slightly left and continue in the same direction so that the next line of bushes is on your right. At the end of this section, bear slightly right to pass through the gap in the bushes and then curve naturally left along the field-edge.

The footpath crosses this field diagonally, due northwest to the opposite corner. If you are unable to cross the field, follow the field-edge to your left until you are able to turn right (due north). Either way you will eventually reach a footbridge, with another bridge immediately after on the left. Cross these and follow the footpath diagonally across this final field, due northwest. 

When you reach Hamstreet Canal Bridge, turn right, and follow the familiar road past the garden centre, back into the village.

Route to Orlestone Forest (1½ miles each way)

To reach Fagg's Wood, which is part of Orlestone Forest, head along the road towards Tenterden from the crossroads. You will pass beneath the railway bridge and bypass bridge, and at the top of the hillock there is a byway on your right. Follow this, and eventually it will emerge into open fields. Follow the right-hand field edge as the path gently climbs. The path follows the line of the fence to your right and eventually reaches a small gate into woodlands. 

Continue up through the woods and then diagonally left across an open field to the northwest corner. Another short wooded section will bring you out to Malthouse Lane. Turn right along the lane and several hundred yards later turn left into the gravel entrance to Faggs Wood. There is a picnic area here, and if you continue to the end of the gravel track you will find a path into the woodlands. Feel free to explore the reserve and return to Hamstreet the way you came.   

Hamstreet, Kent / Royal Military Canal - Cycling Routes

[Transcript from original web page]

This web page may be freely copied for use on cycle rides. To view two videos of the towpath on YouTube search for 'Royal Military Canal by bike.'

The Royal Military Canal runs for 28 miles from Cliff End (near Hastings) to Seabrook (near Folkestone). This peaceful waterway was built as a line of defence against a feared invasion by Napoleon, and the bends roughly every third of a mile were intended to serve as lookout points along the ‘straights’. After Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dyke it is the third longest defensive structure in the UK. A footpath runs the entire length of the canal, but this page shows how cycleable sections between Hamstreet and Seabrook can be used.

Also included are links from Hamstreet to the national cycle network to reach the nearby towns of Ashford and Tenterden, as well as circular recreational routes exploring woodland byways and Romney Marsh. To begin the routes from Hamstreet, head for the crossroads, 300 yards south of the railway station. Note that the section of canal path between Ruckinge and Hamstreet can have unavoidable puddles if wet, and the byway/bridleway routes can be muddy.

Canal eastbound: From Hamstreet to Hythe (12/13m) and Folkestone (18/19m)

Our route commences at the crossroads by The Duke's Head and heads south through the High Street to exit the village along Marsh Road. We join the canal after the bridge by the garden centre. Turning left, you will find a 1.5 mile hard-surfaced trail to Ruckinge.

The second half is designated as ‘footpath’ so our route turns right onto a grassy byway just before a pumping station. (If you wish to continue beside the canal to Ruckinge - the slightly shorter option - you may have to lift your bike over a fence/gate.The land-owner is tolerant if you show respect, and the author advises walking with your bike. Upon reaching the bridge, turn left onto the lane, then right onto the B2067 to pass the Blue Anchor pub. After a mile of undulations, turn right in Bilsington by the White Horse to descend the hill, cross the canal and continue onto the Marsh at the point marked ***).

On the byway route heading south, you will encounter three right-angle bends – left, right and left again. Please close and fasten all gates. You will eventually reach Lord's Farm, where it becomes a driveway. When you reach the lane, continue across it onto the lane to Bilsington, which eventually rejoins the canal. Note, the monumental obelisk to a local landowner, Sir William Richard Cosway, who died in a coaching accident. At the T-junction by the road-bridge, turn right.

*** Our lane heads back out onto the Marsh for around a mile. Take the first left turn. This lane will pass Honeywood Farm and you will reach a T-junction at the end - turn right.

A few hundred yards later you will reach a T-junction with the Newchurch road - turn left. Shortly after this is a staggered junction - the building on the corner was once Bonnington’s pub. 

Turn left and then right onto Lower Wall Road, which runs along the bottom of the greensand hills (Noel Coward's former home can viewed upon the escarpment). Take the left turn towards the hills after a couple of miles (Aldergate Lane). After bridging the canal, turn right onto the gravel trail. As you ride, you may see the wild animals of Port Lympne Zoo Park to your left. A little further along, the hills are occupied by Lympne Castle and the remains of the Roman ‘Stutfall’ Castle further down the slope. Lympne was indeed a port in this era.

The trail continues across the lane when you reach West Hythe village, and further on there is a ‘listening ear’ dish upon the hillside, designed to detect incoming enemy aircraft from across The English Channel in the days before RADAR. Upon reaching Scanlons Bridge Road at Hythe (nearest railway station = Sandling), the canal path swaps to the south bank. The path crosses Dymchurch Road and Stade Street and upon reaching Twiss Road the cycle path returns to the north bank. A couple of miles later, the path brings us out onto the A259 at Seabrook - the end of the canal. Turn right and use the sea-wall/national cycle route 2 via Sandgate to reach Folkestone, and find the railway station if returning by train.

Canal westbound: From Folkestone to Hythe (6m) and Hamstreet (18/19m)

The Royal Military Canal begins at Seabrook, which can be reached via the sea-wall/national cycle route 2 from Folkestone harbour, via Sandgate.

Join the A259 when the sea-wall comes away from the main road near a petrol station. Pass the petrol station on your left and look for the beginning of the canal path 300 yards later on your left hand side (it is just after a grassy area on the left). Follow this the trail for two miles until it reaches Twiss Road, beyond which the route switches to the south bank.

The path crosses Stade Street and Dymchurch Road. After crossing Scanlon's Bridge Road by the light railway station, it swaps back to the north bank, beginning as a narrow roadway. The road eventally becomes a gravel path, and as you leave the town, note the ‘listening ear’ dish upon the hillside, designed to detect incoming enemy aircraft from across The English Channel in the days before RADAR. 

The trail continues across the road at West Hythe village. As you ride on, look right to view Lympne Castle and the remains of the Roman ‘Stutfall’ Castle further down the slope. A little further on you may glimpse the wild animals of Port Lympne Zoo Park.

Sadly the bike-friendly part of the towpath ends at Aldergate Lane Bridge. We turn left to go over across and along Aldergate Lane until reaching a T-junction. Turn right onto Lower Wall Road and follow this for two miles. At the end, there is a staggered junction. Turn left and then right towards Newchurch - the building on the corner was once Bonnington’s pub.

Take the next turning right and turn left shortly afterwards onto the lane passing Honeywood Farm. At the end of this lane turn right towards Bilsington. Note, the monumental obelisk to a local landowner, Sir William Richard Cosway, who died in a coaching accident. At the canal bridge one has a choice. (If you feel able to lift your bike over a gate/fence, continue ahead up the hill and turn left onto the B2067 at Bilsington crossroads, by the White Horse pub. After a mile of undulations you will reach Ruckinge. Turn left after the Blue Anchor pub and then right onto the canal path immediately after the bridge. The first 3/4 mile is designated 'footpath.' The landowner is tolerant towards cyclists if they show respect, although it may be best to walk with your bike until a byway joins from the left, after you pass the brick pumping station. Continue ahead to the end of the trail at Hamstreet bridge, where our route continues at the point marked ***). 

Our slightly longer 'official' route turns left onto Tar Pot Lane at Bilsington canal bridge and we are reunited briefly with the canal bank before the lane heads back out into the Marsh. At the end of the lane, continue ahead onto the byway. This becomes a grass track shortly after passing Lord's Farm. As the route progresses, you will encounter three right-angle bends – right, left and right again at the junction of byways. Please close and fasten all gates.

Upon reaching the canal bank, turn left and make the most of the canal-side trail to Hamstreet bridge***, where we turn right to pass the garden centre and head into the village. Hamstreet was once featured in map form on a series of stamps to commemorate 200 years of the Ordnance Survey, who began their first countrywide survey near the village. Continue ahead at the crossroads by The Duke's Head for the railway station.

Extending the route: This guide does not cover the western half of the canal due to it using busier, faster paced roads. However, completists may wish to continue using the B2067 (Hamstreet-Kenardington), Appledore Road/Kenardington Road, The Street (Appledore) and Military Road which runs beside the canal from Appledore to Rye. There is a also a grassy bridleway beside the River Brede (which multiplexes with the canal) from Harbour Road, Rye to Sea Road, Winchelsea.

Link to Tenterden (11m) - byway & national cycle route 18

Hamstreet to Tenterden: From Hamstreet crossroads, take the B2067 towards Tenterden. You will pass beneath two bridges and climb gently for a mile. Take the right turn onto Malthouse Lane which climbs some more and enters Orlestone Forest. The Weald of Kent was once completely covered with thick woodland of this kind. A mile later, we reach the T-junction with Birchett Lane. Turn left and then right a few hundred yards later, onto the hard-surfaced trail heading northwest.

Be warned, this route can be quite muddy in winter. After a mile, there are two ninety-degree bends. A quarter of a mile later, a byway exits left; do not take this - continue ahead. Shortly after this another trail exits right – again continue straight ahead. 

You will eventually emerge to open farmland and meet Shadoxhurst Road, where we take a right turn.

At the next T-junction, turn left and follow the blue 'cycle route 18' signs - across two crossroads on Plurenden Rd, left at the next T-junction onto Harbourne Lane, right at the next junction onto Swain Rd, then left onto Ox Lane at the top of the hill, and left again onto the A28 at the Fat Ox.

Tenterden to Hamstreet: Head towards Ashford on the A28, turning right at the Fax Ox pub. Turn right at the end of Ox Lane onto Swain Road and follow the blue cycleway signs. After descending through trees, bear left at the T-junction and turn right at the end of Harbourne Lane. Continue ahead passing Redbrook Street crossroads and over the crossroads with Bethersden Road. 

At the end of the lane turn right onto local cycle route 11, turning left onto the byway very soon after. Follow this byway into the woods and onward when a trail joins from the left and also when another byway exits right. At the end of the byway, turn left onto Birchett Lane and then right at the T-junction a few hundred yards later onto Malthouse Lane. You will eventually descend to a T-junction with the B2067. Turn left to descend for a mile to Hamstreet crossroads.

Ashford circular route (19 miles) or one way (9 miles) - bridleway, cycle routes and byway

This route can be used for a one way trip to Ashford (train back) or as a complete circuit. If starting from Ashford, head south under the brick subway beneath the railway station and turn right to begin with Part 2. Note, the wooded sections can be muddy.

Part 1: Head towards Hythe along the one-way street from Hamstreet crossroads and take the second left turn onto Bourne Lane (by the World War II pillbox). At the end of the lane, bear right, through the gate into Hamstreet Woods. Our bridleway bears immediately left, and at the next junction it bears right. Stay on the grassy path, as the surfaced path on the left eventually deviates. Follow this for a mile to the top of the woods. It can be very muddy in winter. Go through the gate, and shortly afterwards turn left at the T-junction with Gill Lane byway. 

Continue ahead where the Saxon Shore Way exits right along a farm track. 300 yards later you will reach a road junction; turn right. At the next junction turn left to head northward. You will reach a crossroads at the end of this lane. Continue ahead onto Brisley Lane and follow this all the way to the end.

Turn left to head northward, and at Bliby crossroads around 400 yards later, turn left again towards Kingsnorth.

At the T-junction a mile ahead, bear left over the railway and A2070 bridge. Follow the road round to the right as it becomes Violet Way. Then look for the Violet Way 'cul de sac' turning on the left and pick up the path from this, taking care to give way to pedestrians. Eventually another surfaced path will branch off to the left - take this path.

Continue ahead near Furley Park school, and at the end of the path is a metal gate. Turn right onto the next path and follow this across Reed Crescent (via the traffic island to the left as the route joins the road) and Bluebell Road, so that you are now riding the cycle route beside Sheepfold Lane. This is all part of the Park Farm Estate.

After crossing Roman Road, use the crossing over Sheepfold Lane and follow the path out to the A2070 between fences. Cross this road and follow the cycle route past the roundabout, beneath the road bridge and on across meadows beside the railway line, until reaching the end.

Turn left here and follow the natural course of the cycle path past the bus stops, over the zebra crossing and along the left-hand-side of the tented designer shopping outlet. At the end, cross Newtown Road and continue ahead towards the international railway station. (For the town centre turn right to pass beneath the brick subway - mind your heads - and turn left afterwards, following the signs beyond.)

Part 2: To ride to Hamstreet, you can either retrace the route of Part 1, or for a slightly longer ride back follow the road onward towards the international station. Bear left with the road, picking up the cycleway beside it, passing beneath a dual carriageway bridge and to the right of a multi-storey car-park. Cross Beaver Road and continue ahead on the cycleway. At Victoria Park, continue ahead, passing the fountain and follow the cycleway to Brookfield Road. Turn right and then follow the cycleway on your left, passing Singleton Lake. Upon reaching Bucksford Lane, turn left. Continue ahead at the staggered junction and climb Singleton Hill, onward and upward at the roundabout.

Turn left at the top of the hill and then right to descend to the hamlet of Chilmington. Turn left at the end of the road and then right onto Chart Road. At the end of this lane turn left to emerge by the Kings Head pub in Shadoxhurst. Turn right here and continue ahead out of the village towards Woodchurch. Continue ahead when national cycle route 18 exits right towards Tenterden, and look for the byway on your left.

Follow this byway into the woods and on ahead as a trail joins from the left and also when another byway exits right. At the end of the byway, turn left onto Birchett Lane and then right at the T-junction a few hundred yards later onto Malthouse Lane. You will eventually descend to a T-junction with the B2067. Turn left to descend for a mile to Hamstreet crossroads.

Quick 'four seasons' route to Ashford (6.5 miles) 

This is a quicker route to Ashford for cyclists who are more experienced with traffic. It uses the old road to Ashford which heads north from the crossroads under the railway bridge. Follow this road for around four miles, up the long hill, along the straight, ahead at Bromley Green Crossroads and past the entrance to Ashford Town's 'Homelands' football ground. Turn right at the next crossroads (signed 'Mersham') onto Steeds Lane. Take the next turning left onto Bond Lane. At the end of this road, turn left and then turn right onto the gravel path near where the road enters a 30 limit.

Follow this across Reed Crescent (via the traffic island to the left as the route joins the road) and Bluebell Road, so that you are now riding the cycle route beside Sheepfold Lane. This is all part of the Park Farm Estate.

After crossing Roman Road, use the crossing over Sheepfold Lane and follow the path out to the A2070 between fences. Cross this road and follow the cycle route past the roundabout, beneath the road bridge and on across meadows beside the railway line, until reaching the end.

Turn left here and follow the natural course of the cycle path past the bus stops, over the zebra crossing and along the left-hand-side of the tented designer shopping outlet. At the end, cross Newtown Road and continue ahead towards the international railway station. (For the town centre turn right to pass beneath the brick subway - mind your heads - and turn left afterwards, following the signs beyond.) To return to Hamstreet, merely retrace this route.

Ruckinge circular route (5 miles) - bridleway and byways

Head towards Hythe along the one-way street from Hamstreet crossroads and take the second left turn onto Bourne Lane (by the World War II pillbox). At the end of the lane, bear right, through the gate into Hamstreet Woods. Our bridleway bears immediately left, and at the next junction it bears right. Stay on the grassy path, as the surfaced path on the left eventually deviates. Follow this for a mile to the top of the woods. It can be very muddy in winter. Go through the gate, and shortly afterwards turn left at the T-junction with Gill Lane byway. 

Continue ahead where the Saxon Shore Way exits right along a farm track. 300 yards later you will reach a road junction; turn right. At the next junction continue straight ahead onto the byway and follow it all the way into the woods, around a sharp right-hand bend and down to the B2067, where we turn right to Ruckinge, passing the Blue Anchor pub which was once frequented by smugglers. 

The B2067 continues to Hamstreet, but the canal path is an off-road alternative, although you may have to lift your bike over a gate. For this, turn left at the T-junction, and then right onto the canal path immediately after the bridge. The first 3/4 mile is designated 'footpath.' The landowner is tolerant towards cyclists if they show respect, although it may be best to walk with your bike until a byway joins from the left after you pass the brick pumping station. Continue ahead to the end of the trail at Hamstreet bridge (by the garden centre) and turn right to return to the village centre.

Shadoxhurst circular route (11 miles) - byways 

Follow the Tenterden Link to the end of the woodland byway, turning right onto Shadoxhurst Road and continue ahead to Shadoxhurst. Turn right at the junction as you enter the village (the King's Head pub is 100 yards straight ahead here). Follow this lane past Shadoxhurst church, and after a sharp right-hand bend look for the byway on your left. 

Follow this byway through woodlands, eventually emerging onto Hornash Lane, where we turn right. Take great care crossing the old Ashford to Hamstreet Road at the end of the lane and continue ahead onto Bromley Green Road. Continue ahead at the next crossroads onto Poundhurst Road, which bridges the railway and A2070.. 

1/4 mile after bridging the A2070 and railway line, the lane bears sharply left; continue ahead at this point, onto Gill Lane. This will eventually become a track. Bear right to follow the bridleway right down through Hamstreet Woods nature reserve. This can often be rough or very muddy. At the other end, follow Bourne Lane into the village. Turn left at the end onto the one-way street (by the World War II pill-box), then right at the end onto Cock Lane, and right again into The Street.  

Snargate circular route (9 miles) or Fairfield (13 miles) - lanes 

For a pleasant route using lanes that is almost entirely flat, head south from Hamstreet village along Marsh Road (signed 'New Romney'), crossing the canal bridge, until reaching the A2070 at Johnson's Corner. Johnson was a heroic pilot who lost his life crash-landing his plane here after allowing his crew to parachute to safety. Take great care turning left onto the A2070 and then right immediately onto Ham Mill Lane, which bears right as it heads southwards. This is a pleasant winding lane. Follow it ahead over the crossroads after two miles, passing farms, and continue ahead all the way to the end of the lane. You will emerge onto the B2080 near Snargate Church opposite the Red Lion pub - a unique alehouse serving beer straight from the barrel, with a decor that has been virtually untouched in the last century (closed Mondays).

Turn right to ride westward along the B2080 towards Tenterden and take the second turning right (Arrowhead Lane - signed 'Warehorne'). (If you wish to make a 4-mile round trip to see St Thomas a Becket church at Fairfield, which is located in the middle of a field, take the first turning left off of the B2080 onto Snargate Lane instead. You will cross a level crossing and at the end of the lane, turn right for the final mile to the church along Brack Lane. It is 'footpath only' across the fields to the church. Return by retracing your route to the B2080, then turn left and then right 1/4 mile later onto Arrowhead Lane).

Follow the lane northward ahead at all junctions for two miles, crossing the canal and railway line and then climbing to the scattered community of Warehorne. You will pass St Matthew's Church and the sixteenth century Woolpack Inn. 1/3 mile beyond this you will reach Leacon crossroads. Turn right for a one-mile gentle cruise downhill on the B2067 back to Hamstreet.