Walk 23 : Otford to Eynsford

River Darent, two castles and a Roman villa

Length	13.9km (8.6 miles), 4 hours. For the whole outing, including trains, sights and meals, allow 8 hours 45 minutes.
OS Maps	Explorers 147 & 162 or Landrangers 188 & 177. Otford, map reference TQ 532 593, is in Kent, 4km north of Sevenoaks.
Toughness	5 out of 10.
Features	The walk has two steep uphill sections, and the first half can be very muddy. The suggested route takes in three villages steeped in history, a ruined palace, two castles and a Roman villa. At times the route runs alongside the River Darent, at other times through fields and woods. At the start of the walk there is the Otford Solar System, which claims to be the only scale model of its kind in the world; it shows the relative position of the sun and planets at the start of the new millennium. In the afternoon, you come to Lullingstone Park with its (early summer) orchids; its Visitor Centre offers exhibitions and information about the park (and has a café). Towards the end of the walk you pass Lullingstone Castle with its new visitor attraction, the World Garden, and Lullingstone Roman Villa.
Shortening the walk	To avoid the mud on wet days you could start the walk from the suggested lunchtime stop by travelling directly to Shoreham Station (or you could end the walk there). You can cut 1.2km off the end of the walk by following the short cut at [*] in the Walking Instructions.
History	Otford goes back to the sixth century when the Anglo-Saxons called their settlement Ottanford ('Otta's ford'). The Archbishop's Palace in Otford, the remaining fragments of which are on open view, once rivalled Hampton Court for splendour, until Henry VIII forced Archbishop Cranmer to surrender it in 1537. Construction of St Bartholomew's Church, Otford, began in 1060, with the tower being added in around 1185. The church contains large marble memorials to Charles and David Polhill, great-grandsons of Oliver Cromwell. The artist Samuel Palmer lived and worked in Shoreham from 1826 to 1834. He was the leader of a group who followed William Blake and called themselves The Ancients. Palmer's father, also called Samuel, rented the Water House by the river. The Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shoreham has many interesting features, including an outstanding wooden rood screen spanning the width of the building and a stained glass window by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Burne-Jones. Lullingstone Park was a deer park from the Middle Ages until World War II, when the park was used as a decoy airfield – the heavy bombing so terrified the deer that they escaped. Species of tree that deer would not eat have been planted through the centuries, thus ancient hornbeam pollards remain. Lullingstone Castle (tel 01322 862 114) is the residence of the Hart Dyke family, having remained in the Dyke family for centuries, with the original house built during the reign of Henry VII. Its gatehouse is one of the earliest all-brick buildings in Britain. In the grounds is the World Garden, containing plants from around the globe, which is open to visitors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons between April and September (and Bank Holiday Mondays). The House is only open on Bank Holiday weekends. Admission (2010) is £6. Lullingstone Roman Villa (tel 01322 863 467) was first occupied in 80AD by a rich Roman who practised pagan worship of the local water sprite in a room here, which later became a Christian temple. The ruins include two mosaic floors. It is normally open daily (not Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day) from 10am to 6pm in summer, 4pm in winter (October to the end of March). Admission (2010) is £5.90. St Martin's Church in Eynsford is unusual in having retained the Norman ground plan with apsidal chancel. In about 1163, Thomas à Becket excommunicated Sir William de Eynsford III, the Lord of the Manor who controlled the patronage for this church. The excommunication was cancelled by Henry II and the issue became part of the quarrel which led to Becket's murder. Eynsford Castle (free entry) was built in the eleventh century and vandalised in 1312. John de Eynsford, who lived there, is said to have assisted in Becket's murder.
Saturday Walkers' Club	Take the train nearest to 10.15am (before or after) from Victoria Station to Otford. Journey time 35 minutes. Buy a day return to Otford. Trains back from Eynsford are half-hourly and go to Blackfriars (Victoria on Sundays), but are slower; you can change at Bromley South for a fast train to Victoria. If driving, Otford Station car park costs £3.50 (cheaper at weekends). Alternatively, there is a free public car park in the village, opposite the Bull pub. Eynsford Station has a small free car park. There are trains every 30 minutes from Eynsford to Otford.
Lunch	The suggested lunchtime stop is the King's Arms pub (tel 01959 523 100) in Shoreham, which serves food to 2.30pm; it has in its front wall the country's last remaining ostler box (like an enclosed little sentry box, where the ostler used to wait to attend to customers' horses). Alternatives are Ye Olde George Inne (tel 01959 522 017) in Church Street, which serves food midday to 3pm Tuesday-Thursday, all day Friday & Saturday, and 6pm Sunday; the Two Brewers pub (tel 01959 522 800) at 30 High Street, which serves food midday to 2pm (Sunday to 2.45pm); and (at the other end of the village) the Crown pub (tel 01959 522 903) at 84 High Street, which serves food midday to 2.15pm (Sunday to 3pm). Shoreham also has a small tea shop serving light lunches, the Honeypot (tel 01959 524 070) at 4 High Street, although this is only open Thursday-Saturday (from 11am to 4.30pm), plus occasional Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays.
Tea	The suggested tea place in Eynsford is the Plough (tel 01322 862 281), which has an attractive riverside location and serves tea and coffee as well as normal pub fare. Other pubs in Eynsford are the Malt Shovel Inn (tel 01322 862 164), the Five Bells (tel 01322 863 135) and the Castle Hotel (tel 01322 863 162). Earlier in the walk, the café at the Lullingstone Park Visitor Centre (tel 01322 865 995) is open daily to 5pm in summer, 4pm in winter.

Travel by Train	Out: (not a train station) Back: (not a train station)
Travel by Car	Start: Otford Station is near : TN14 5QY [gmap] Finish: Eynsford Station is near : DA4 0HP [gmap] Return to your car by train: (park at the start) at 4pm (park at the end) at 10am
OS Explorer Map	147 : Sevenoaks & Tonbridge [Amazon] 162 : Greenwich & Gravesend [Amazon]
Revised	This walk was fully revised in : Oct-06. Download the PDF (link above) for the revised instructions, but for the map, you'll still need the book.
Updates	Many updates - use the revised version. [details]
Other Greensand Hills Walks	Leigh to Tunbridge Wells, Hever to Leigh, Leigh to Sevenoaks, Borough Green to Sevenoaks, Otford (round walk), Yalding to Borough Green, Hurst Green to Chiddingstone Causeway, Sevenoaks to Westerham, Sevenoaks Circular, Yalding to Sevenoaks, Oxted Circular, Edenbridge to Westerham, Staplehurst to Headcorn,

Walking Instructions 

Note: Bold numbers in square brackets refer to the Walk Map in Time Out Country Walks near London Volume 1.

1. [1] Coming off the London train, go over the railway line and exit the Otford Station building. Turn left, and 40 metres inside the car park, on the right-hand side, go through the gap in the railings and take the tarmac path heading west away from the station, soon with an open field on your left-hand side. Keep to this path through a bend to the right. A wooden kissing gate takes you into the churchyard of St Bartholomew's Church, which is worth a look inside (the old south door is no longer used and the new entrance is a set of modern doors on the north side).
2. From the church, head north-west towards the main road (a detour to the left here would take you in less than 100 metres to the gatehouse and north-west tower, virtually all that remains of Otford Palace).
3. To continue the walk, go over to the far side of the village pond (the duckhouse here is Britain's smallest listed building). Take the road on the left (westwards) by the Crown Inn, soon passing the Hospices of Hope tea shop on the left and the seventeenth-century Forge House (now a restaurant) on the right.
4. Keep on this road. In 120 metres, by the Bull pub (part of which dates back to 1500), a short diversion to the back of the public car park on the opposite side of the road will take you to a map showing the planetary locations of the Otford Solar System. Continuing on the road, in 200 metres you pass on the left Pickmoss, a medieval open-hall house, and on your right the Darent Valley Path.
5. After crossing over the River Darent, you pass the imposing gates of eighteenth-century Broughton Manor on your left. 200 metres or so later, just beyond a wooden bus shelter on the north side of the road, you come to a concrete pillar representing the planet Uranus.
6. [2] Immediately after this pillar, turn right through a kissing gate to the right of a wooden field gate on to a signposted and well-used public footpath, your direction 330°. In 230 metres, having kept to this main path, go through a kissing gate – a potentially very muddy area – to carry straight on between a hedge and a wire fence.
7. In 400 metres the path goes through a hedge and across a ditch. In a further 120 metres cross a stream on a slab of concrete and 10 metres later fork right along a path, with a wire fence on your right. In 100 metres the path curves to the right past a horse chestnut tree (ignore another path close by on the left) and in 130 metres merges with a farm track from the right.
8. (10 metres ahead, you have a choice of routes, both about the same distance. To go past the concrete pillar representing the planet Pluto, turn right along a signposted footpath. In 240 metres you pass this pillar and continue along the field edge. In 180 metres keep ahead on a potentially muddy car-wide track between hedges. In 500 metres you pass an open barn on your left, with Filston Oast house ahead. Follow the farm track round to the left, heading for a prominent hopper attached to a large industrial shed. Turn right there to reach the farm access road, then turn left to reach Filston Lane in 140 metres. Pick up the main directions at [4] below.)
9. To follow the original published route, however, keep on this farm track, which in 250 metres [3] comes to the corner of an orchard. Instead of veering left and right with the main path towards Sepham Farm and its oasthouses, turn right through a gate to go along the edge of the orchard, your direction 40°, soon passing under mini-pylons.
10. In 100 metres, ignore a left turn through the orchard towards the farm and continue along the edge of several large fields towards Filston Farm in the distance. On nearing the farm, go past an industrial shed up to the farm's access road and turn left. Follow this road to reach Filston Lane in 140 metres.
11. [4] Turn right on this car road. In 250 metres, opposite Water Lane on the right, turn left up a trackway between hedges. After climbing steadily, continue through a gate to climb more steeply up the right-hand side of a field, with Meenfield Wood on your right. Just before a convenient seat, turn right and go over a stile on to a wide path through the wood.
12. In 600 metres you come to a crossing, with steps up and down, and you turn right downhill towards Shoreham on a potentially slippery path, your direction 120°.
13. In 60 metres go through a swing gate and continue downwards. On your left behind you is a chalk cross commemorating those who died in WW1. In a further 100 metres, go over a stile and down through hedges. In a further 120 metres, go through a metal kissing gate and keep on the main path down past playing fields on your left-hand side.
14. You come out on to Shoreham's High Street (turn left here if you wish to go to the Two Brewers pub, 100 metres away on the other side of the road, or the Village Stores, a further 50 metres up the road). For the main route, turn right, soon passing the Honeypot tearoom on your left. Just past this, turn left into Church Street. In 180 metres you come to the King's Arms pub on your right-hand side, the suggested lunchtime stop for the walk.
15. (Alternatively, continue along the road, cross the river and follow Church Street up to the right; Ye Olde George Inne is on the right 150 metres away, opposite the entrance to the Church of St Peter and St Paul.)
16. On coming out of the King's Arms, turn right and go along the road, cross the river and turn left into Darenth Way (or, from Ye Olde George Inne, return to this point). Pass to the left of Water House and keep to the riverside path, with the River Darent on your left-hand side.
17. In 500 metres you cross the river by a footbridge with metal railings. 50 metres further on, you leave the Darent Valley Path to turn left uphill on a car lane, westwards. At the top of Mill Lane you come to a T-junction with the main road (the Crown pub is 80 metres away on your left here).
18. Cross over the road and take a permissive path, the Millennium Footpath, which runs parallel to the road on your right-hand side. In 100 metres cross a stile and follow a grassy path up the right-hand field edge to reach the top corner of the field.
19. Exit the field over a stile to the left of a fieldgate. Continue out to a road and turn right downhill. In 100 metres continue ahead at a road junction, but in a further 100 metres, turn left at another junction into Cockerhurst Road, signposted Well Hill and Chelsfield (just before this junction there is an interesting little memorial stone up on the bank; the biblical quotation is from Hosea 2:14).
20. After 350 metres of walking uphill between tall beech trees, and opposite a large bungalow (Combe Vale) [5], take the footpath on the right, your direction 15°, to follow a clear path steeply uphill, soon with a large field behind a fence on your left-hand side.
21. 300 metres from the road, cross a stile and follow the left-hand field edge northwards, towards Homewood Farm. Keep on this path, with trees and then hedges on your left-hand side.
22. In 400 metres the path bends left beside a small house on the right-hand side. In a further 100 metres, you join a concrete car road and continue on, your direction 350°.
23. 200 metres later, at the T-junction with a car road, turn right down the road. In 100 metres ignore the road to your left, but 10 metres later [6] cross a stile on the left into Home Wood.
    Note: These woods, and the golf course up ahead, are part of Lullingstone Park. When this walk was devised the directions through this Country Park followed the route of a published trail, but the numbered posts which marked out this route are no longer present. Not all of the paths used are shown on the OS map, and the book's sketch map is not an accurate representation here.
24. 10 metres inside the wood, turn right on to a wide path, your direction 100°. In 40 metres follow it round to the left, your direction now 40°.
25. In 300 metres, having ignored paths off to both sides, you come to a T-junction. Turn right and then in 20 metres turn left into a very wide grassy descent between Upper and Lower Beechen Wood, still heading north-east down the left-hand side of this avenue.
26. In 400 metres you come to a permissive bridleway [7], with a wooden gate up ahead leading on to a golf course. The shortest route is to go through this gate on to the golf course, reaching a gravel track in 75 metres, but as you come out into the open beware of golfers playing across your route from a raised golf tee on your left. (You can avoid this hazard by turning left on to the bridleway just before entering the golf course, then following it through the trees up a short rise, round to the right behind the golf tee and down through the trees to the same gravel track a little further along.) Either way, turn right on to this gravel track, heading east.
    Note: If you wish, you could now simply follow this gravel track all the way through the golf course. In 1.25km you would come out on to the Darent Valley Path in front of Lullingstone Castle, resuming the directions at point [8] below. However, this would miss out a nice stretch of the walk and you would bypass the Lullingstone Park Visitor Centre.
27. For the recommended route, follow the gravel track for about 200 metres and then turn half-left on to a wide grassy path going up a slope. After levelling out the path goes past the 13th tee and a green, then descends to go back across the gravel track, which has curved round to the left in the valley. Aim to the left of a green up a short slope ahead and go through a gap in the trees to pass between it and the 8th tee on your left. On reaching some trees turn right, joining a permissive bridleway.
28. After passing the green, bear left through a gap in the trees. This leads to a fine view across the Darent valley, with the brick gatehouse of Lullingstone Castle in the valley on your left and Lullingstone Park Visitor Centre down on your right.
29. Turn right and go along the ridge on a broad grassy path (taking the left fork at a Y-junction), your direction 210°. In 200 metres the path goes between hedges. In another 100 metres, turn left downhill on a car-wide track, in 200 metres reaching Lullingstone Park Visitor Centre (which has a café).
30. Coming out of the Visitor Centre, go through a wooden kissing gate on its northern boundary and turn right towards the river. Turn left in front of the bridge and continue northwards along an attractive path, with the water on your right-hand side. In 600 metres go through a wooden barrier [8] and continue straight on towards the gatehouse of Lullingstone Castle.
31. Beyond the castle, continue straight on, still northwards, on a tarmac lane. In 600 metres or so, you come to a large shed on your left-hand side, inside of which is Lullingstone Roman Villa.
32. ([*] You can shorten the walk by 1.2km at this point by turning right to cross the river on a bridge to the left of the car park. In 600 metres this private road – which is also a public footpath – comes to a T-junction with the A225, where you turn left. In 300 metres you go under the railway bridge and turn sharp right to reach the station.)
33. To complete the full walk, continue northwards on the car road. In 600 metres you go under Eynsford Rail Viaduct (built in the nineteenth century with bricks made in Brick Field, just above the east bank of the river) and go straight on, with the river still on your right-hand side.
34. After the road curves to the right, keep straight on (signposted Eynsford) at the junction with Sparepenny Lane, in a further 200 metres coming to the Plough pub on your left-hand side (the suggested tea place). Continuing along the road, go over the bridge by the ford and up to the main road.
35. (To visit the ruins of Eynsford Castle, which is about 400 metres away, turn left on the main road and carry on through the village, passing the Five Bells pub on your right-hand side. Opposite the Castle Hotel, turn left on a tarmac lane signposted Village Hall and follow it round to the right to find the Castle car park and ruins.)
36. For Eynsford Station, turn right on to the main road, with St Martin's Church opposite. You soon pass the Malt Shovel Inn on your left-hand side and go uphill for 800 metres, turning left into the station approach road just over the brow of the hill. Trains back to London are on the far platform, over the footbridge.