My twenty-year 'china anniversary' re-walk of the Greensand Way is now complete. I first walked the c.110-mile path from Hamstreet to Haslemere in May 2006, as the first phase of a challenge to hike to Ham Street in Somerset with my friend, Tom.
This second installment fills in the gaps between the sections explored in the 'Part I' blog.'
The mid-Kent section westward from Sutton Valence to East Peckham was achieved by catching trains to the village of Headcorn and then a bus to Sutton Valence. The first two thirds of this section feel similar to the section from Pluckley (documented last time), with the path remaining resolutely at the top of the range of hills, with excellent views across the Weald of Kent to the south. Orchards abound and the path passes the gated driveway to Linton Hall. Eventually the route tumbles off of the hills to reach Yalding, a village that used to flood severely on a regular basis. The route then follows a short navigation channel which was built to cut a corner off of the meandering River Medway for commercial vessels.
The hill range takes a while to get back into full flow after the path crosses the Medway Valley, but the next section westward includes the pretty village of Shipbourne (pronounced 'shibbun' and located a few miles north of the town of Tonbridge), with its grassy common land being a prominent feature. The moated manor house at Ightham (pronounced ‘item’) is well worth a short detour. Beyond this, the ridge reasserts itself and one is really quite high up when nearing Knole Park on the edge of Sevenoaks. You may spot a deer here and you will almost certainly pass the odd jogger! The path then falls off of the hills and becomes quite hard to follow, needing to tunnel beneath the A21 to reach the village of Sevenoaks Weald. After a pint of mild and a bag of crisps in the local pub I walked up to the Hildenborough Road and caught as bus to Tonbridge Station.
The next section west from Sevenoaks Weald takes the walker all the way to Surrey, climbing back onto the ridge again to pass the village of Ide Hill, with its conveniently located shop / cafe, and the wooded summit of Toy’s Hill, one of the highest points in Kent. The true highest point is actually Betsom’s Hill on the North Downs above Westerham, which musters over 820 feet in height.
The path then passes Chartwell, which was Winston Churchill’s home for over forty years, chosen by him mainly because the view across the Kentish Weald is so nice. Crockhamhill Common becomes Limpsfield Common as the walker passes into Surrey (it's all just 'woods' to me). Here, there is a marker-stone showing Hamstreet and Haslemere as each being 55 miles away in opposite directions. The walk beyond into Oxted is typically ‘Surrey’ with lots of common land around leafy suburban roads.
Having documented the sections between Oxted and Dorking in my last article, there is just the last 35 miles to report on. I decided to work backwards, catching trains to Haslemere to begin my walk eastwards. Haslemere is a pretty country town, where a plaque commemorates the first police officer in the Surrey Constabulary to die on duty in what is known as the 'Haslemere riot.' Clearly these were different times.
The Greensand Way climbs steeply to the Devil’s Punchbowl at Hindhead, a village that used to endure a near-permanent stream of traffic on the A3. The road tunnels beneath it today and there is not really any evidence that it used to run right through the village, with tasteful landscaping removing all vestiges of this arterial road from London to Portsmouth. After some magnificent northward views the path descends to Thursley village, from where it begins its long bumpy journey eastward to Dorking. I was crestfallen to reach the Dog and Pheasant at Brook to find 'To Let' signs. I had used the pub in 2006 on my initial walk and a beer would have gone down like a snake's foot (as people say down here on Romney Marsh). Instead I continued via Sandhills (the clue is in the name) and Wormley, and I had an evening meal in the Merry Harriers pub in Hambledon. Conversations in 'RP' English reverberated around me as I ate. A few miles beyond, I camped in the Hurtwood. The name has nothing to do with pain, as ‘hurts’ was a local dialect word for bilberries.
The next day was searing hot. Hascombe was quaint with a winding lane, a pond and a pretty church. When I reached the village of Shamley Green, where the ridge has another break to let a river through, I was seriously considering throwing in the towel. However, the next section was mercifully shady as the ridge is heavily wooded here. There are some great viewpoints, and the path descends to pass by the Duke of Edinburgh School and again to pass through the village of Holmbury St Mary. Beyond is Leith Hill, the highest point in Surrey. It is crowned with a tower and seems to be quite a tourist hotspot.
There was just the long slow descent to Dorking to go after this. Time was limited before the train that I needed to catch home, so a ‘meal deal’ in an Esso garage had to make do. There's no point lying - this last section was gruelling in the heat, with no public transport on a bank holiday Monday and no refreshment facilities between Holmbury St Mary and Wotton, by which point I needed to get a spurt on.
All in all, it’s been fascinating to re-walk this long distance path, and I’ve made a few tweaks to my book, ‘Mud, Sweat and Beers’ which documents the route and our continuation westward to the other ‘Ham Street’ in Somerset. It is perhaps inevitable that I will eventually re-walk those paths too.
