The North Downs Way & Pilgrims Way from Cuxton to Thurnham (14.3 miles)

Walkers quickly develop a food obsession. Often it’s impossible to think of anything else as you tramp onwards burning calories along the way. 

Alison’s breakfast taken in the dining room of the barn is enormous and magnificent. Fully sated by fresh strawberries, grapefruit segments, muesli, coffee and orange juice followed by the main offering of bacon, egg, hash browns, and sausage, I experience some difficulty bending down to put my boots back on. I carefully smuggle a small sausage portion up to the room for Romney, who makes short work if it.

The first part of our walk today takes us through the pretty Ranscombe Farm Reserve  and then a section which is far removed from the original Pilgrims route. In the 12^th or 13^th century the travellers would have continued to Snodland and then probably have crossed the river Medway by ferry at Halling. The ferry only stopped its service in the 1960’s. Or they might have continued to Rochester, crossed the Road Bridge at Strood and joined up with the Southwark to Canterbury Pilgrims Way along what is now mostly the A2.

The modern-day pilgrim can cross the new motorway bridge and this morning it is so gloomy and damp that the castle and cathedral at Rochester just a few miles up-river are just indistinct outlines on the horizon. A sign from The Samaritans is attached to the northern extreme of the bridge, which is I suppose, is what the marketing men might call “strategically placed advertising”. The castle in the drizzly distance is where I spent much of my schooldays and I was obliged to attend the cathedral every school-day morning (including Saturdays) for the best part of six years.

Having traversed the metallic grey River Medway, we head into the countryside once more at Nashenden Farm, a place which stirs powerful and disturbing schoolboy memories as the location of the much hated school cross-country run. The start point of this compulsory outdoor torture was this very farm and hundreds of boys in white gym kit were coerced into running what seemed like hundreds of miles through sticky wet clay.  

Ascending above the farm into Leg of Mutton woods, I am reminded of an incident that has not crossed my mind in more than 30 years.With lungs bursting in the sharp winter air I remember making a reasonable start one year and being rewarded at the bottom of the first muddy slope by a flashing smile from one of the most attractive sixth form girls who was acting as a race steward . I can still picture clearly her coy look, the direct eye contact, her school scarf protecting her from the December chill and her long dark curly hair caught by the breeze as she brushed it from her eyes, revealing her mild skin disorder. How I longed to run my adolescent hands along those woollen navy blue stockings.  The thought still makes me shudder today.

The thought of the gorgeous sixth former, with the hardly noticeable skin complaint, inspires me up the hill to a stunning view over the Medway from Wouldham Common before descending to Blue Bell Hill, the roar of more motorways and a short rest at Kits Cotie. This is a unique three thousand year old burial chamber set in a field amongst the motorways but to be frank, this is not the most attractive section of the trail and I am pleased to move on to Detling.

A minor navigation error forces me to the foot of Detling Hill but as a result we have to pass over Jade’s Crossing and I am privileged to be able put a pound coin in the collection box at the foot of the pedestrian bridge over the busy dual carriageway. Faced with bureaucratic obfuscation, the feisty villagers of Detling raised their own funds and built their own bridge over the deadly A249 after the death of Jade and her grandmother. On the opposote side of the crossing we rest outside the 14th century Cock at Detling before heading down the Pilgrims Way to Thurnham .

The Black Horse at Thurnham is a proper Kentish country pub complete with dried hops draped from exposed beams, a bread oven, milk churns, local real ales and a huge Inglenook fireplace. Despite having a fancy restaurant (local venison steak with chocolate sauce) and posh rooms at £70 plus per night they could not be more welcoming to a bedraggled middle-aged walker and his overweight exhausted spaniel, both dripping on the floor of their public bar. I set myself up at a table near the bar and enjoy an early supper of peppered roast beef baguette with a huge pile of large chips washed down with a cool pint of Guinness. Sometimes life feels just about perfect and I am about to offer Romney a cold chip but he has already crashed out, fast asleep with his head resting on my backpack.

Tonight’s accommodation is a bunkhouse at Coldbow Farm just about a two miles away across a muddy field and up a steep hill to the crest of the downs. The temperature is dropping as we arrive and we are shown to our modest but comfortable suite of bunk beds with access to multiple showers, toilets and a large kitchen. We are the only guests in the bunkhouses and our hostess tells me it is rare to see walkers at all these days.  I offer an old England rugby shirt for Romney to use as a blanket and we are both snoring in perfect unison by 9.45pm.

The North Downs Way & Pilgrims Way from Heaverham to Cuxton

There really is no need to tramp across the plains of the Serengeti National Park or to risk frostbite by plodding along snow covered mountainous paths in Nepal to experience that primitive thrill of walking in a wilderness, never far from the threat of natural danger. Just explore the North Downs Way in deepest Kent.

It won’t cost you thousands of pounds to reach either, unlike those more exotic overseas locations. In fact, for the modest investment of a cheap off- peak train ticket from London, the hike-hardened walker can spend a day or week-end, experiencing the joys of this wonderful national trail.

And you can even take your dog along too without the risk of your companion being eaten by a lion or falling down a glacier while taking a pee. Sadly though, hardly anyone seems to venture this way anymore. I only saw two other groups of walkers over 40 miles of week-end walking east from Heaverham, near Sevenoaks to Boughton Lees, near Ashford. Just six other people walking, like me, in the footsteps of those many thousands of 13^th century pilgrims who made their way from Winchester to the cathedral at Canterbury in honour of Thomas a Becket who was murdered there in 1170. These pilgrimages, immortalised by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, were a hugely significant part of life in medieval England until Henry VIII banned them in the 16^th century.

Now as you tramp along the historic Pilgrims Way, a flint strewn terrace cut into the chalk slopes only a few meters above the sticky clay of the fields below, you can often hear the faint but unmistakable roar of motorway traffic.

Pick the sweetest rain-washed blackberries from the hedgerows for free, as cars thunder past in the far distance eager to reach some dreary out of town supermarket and purchase tasteless cling film covered fruit imported from somewhere you’ve never heard of.  

My fearless canine companion on this expedition, my large, black working cocker spaniel called Romney (he’s from Romney Marsh) grows impatient with ad-hoc fruit picking.  Like most middle-aged males, he has little appreciation of his own physical limitations and is anxious to be investigating countless scents and trails along the tree lined track that leads across recently harvested fields dotted with bales of hay. 

It is at Wrotham Water,where there is no sign of any water, that we experience our first taste of real danger. Leading Romney off the road into the grass verge to wrestle with the interminable folds of the OS map, I take the opportunity to photograph a fine example of a Kentish cob nut hanging above me and feel a sharp nettle sting on my right shin. Glancing down I see it is not a nettle at all, but rather more alarmingly, a small aggressive wasp attached to the hairs on my lower leg and stinging me as though its life depended on it. Alarm turns to panic as many more angry wasps are organising themselves into an attack formation and one has made an advance for Romney attaching itself to the tangled black fur on the poor dog’s right shoulder.

“Go Rommey go. We’re being attacked” I shout at him, grabbing my pack as I hobble up the track way at full speed dragging my pack while Romney shakes his large ears furiously to rid himself of the vindictive insects.

Many miles further along the Way, while casually looking at a brochure for the Ranscombe Farm Reserve just outside Cuxton, I instantly recognise the image of our violent attacker. It is not a wasp but a mining bee, a species which burrow in bare sunny ground and evidently get extremely cross when trampled on by walkers taking pointless photographs of cob nuts.

Neither of us seemed much the worse for the trauma and after a mile or two we leave the ancient Pilgrims Way for the first time and ascend a steep rutted track into Hogmore Wood. With lunchtime approaching, we enter Trosley Country Park and a most welcome vision emerges like a mirage in the desert, (or in this case, the forest) complete with the aroma of frying bacon- the country park visitor centre is ahead of us and thank the patron saint of walkers, Saint Berghaus-the café is open.

Fortified by a particularly delicious BLT, reluctantly shared with Romney who has an unfortunate but highly effective scrounging habit, we head off into the woods with a renewed vigour. We make our away along the clay track at the summit of the downs towards our first night’s destination in Cuxton on the western bank of the River Medway.

There are few visitors about today. It’s a wet Friday afternoon in September and the kids have returned to school and we overtake two old ladies exercising their dogs on the muddy clay pathway strewn with a ragged carpet of copper leaves. As a heavy rainstorm pelts the leaves above us I notice an adult figure, dressed in cream, dart across the path ahead and into the woods on the left.  Approaching the same spot less than two minutes later, I clearly hear the laughter of a child to the left of the track, although it is curiously disjointed and stilted as though the sound is played on an old fashioned gramophone player. Curiously, there is no obvious way to enter the woods from this part of the track. Indeed, the woods are quite dense and impenetrable and despite stopping and peering intently into the undergrowth, there is no sign of anyone at all; adult or child.

Quite suddenly, the woods seem particularly gloomy and chill for an early afternoon, even in this rain storm and nervously I kept gazing back over my shoulder as we increased our pace along the path.

 “It’s a bloody ghost Romney,” I advise the dog as I look back for the tenth or eleventh time.   

If Romney is troubled  by our supernatural  encounter it is soon forgotten as, only a few miles on, he accidently disturbs a an enormous cock pheasant dozing in a neglected field of maize and the stupid bird launches itself in an explosion of squawks and feathers, so disturbing several other all beating themselves into an airborne panic.

Exhausted canine companion

Romney is a bouncing blur of ears, tail and black fur in hot pursuit of the furthest pheasant, having nearly tripped over the closest one. Needless to say, no pheasant is ever at risk of serious injury and I find the exhausted dog collapsed in the long wet grass about half a mile away, apparently unable to rise and with his rapid breath forming great clouds of white condensation.

“I told you to pace yourself, you silly bugger,” I tell him. “We’re not in our twenties anymore, you know”.

He looks at me blankly puffing hard, spread out in the wet grass like a dead seal so that I feel inclined to offer him some water from my hand and a small chunk of my much coveted chocolate covered hazelnut snack bar. He reluctantly swallows it without much visible enthusiasm.

The effect is pretty miraculous though as he trots off happily and within a few minutes is chasing a grey squirrel across the track into a blackberry bush as though nothing has happened.The astonishing pace of recovery did make me consider momentarily, if it could all have been a devious ploy on the dog’s part to get access to my treasured hazelnut and chocolate snack bar.

A minor navigation error means we miss our B&B destination at North Downs Barn in Lower Bush (not to be confused with Upper Bush) near Cuxton with the rain falling more heavily now as the light fades.  The needless tramp into Cuxton in the rain was soon forgotten during the warm welcome offered by Alison Evans, a charming and gregarious women in her forties who has run this immaculate B&B in a huge converted barn for 17 years. Romney was lucky enough to be greeted with a fluffy clean towel and given a brisk rub down, a delight that he is always partial to. Regrettably, I was not offered the same service by Alison, so carefully kicked off my muddy walking boots and entered the large hall of this magnificent converted barn with exposed beams in every direction.

“This will do nicely Romney. Very nicely indeed” I tell him as we close the door to our very comfortable room and he wags his tail in tacit agreement.

Romney and I must have made a particularly pathetic spectacle because Alison even kindly offers to collect an evening meal for me at the local Indian take-away.

Having showered en suite and feasted on lamb sag and pilau rice, washed down by a cold Cobra beer we are more than ready for bed. After pushing open the bedroom window onto fresh damp air and silence, I slump gratefully into the soft bed worried only by the itching and swelling on my lower leg, caused by the revenge of the mining bee.  Romney slumps in a tired heap and the side of the bed and emits one of his long contented groans. It’s been a long day on the North Downs Way for one Kentishman and his knackered dog.