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Paddock Wood to Yalding walk

An easy walk in an attractive part of the Medway Valley.

Easy Kent

History

This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.

Date Option Post # Weather
Sun, 13-Aug-23 Sunday Walk – Paddock Wood to Yalding 7 sunny
Sun, 19-Sep-21 a Sunday Walk – Paddock Wood to Yalding or Wateringbury (Short Walk) 6 cloudy
Sat, 08-Jun-19 Saturday Walk – [New] The Medway Valley and Teapot Island
Sean
Sean
Extra Walk 338 – Paddock Wood to Yalding

Length: 18 km (11.2 miles). Toughness: 2/10

10:20 Ramsgate train from Victoria† (non-stop to Sevenoaks 10:55), arriving Paddock Wood at 11:18. Buy a return to Yalding (or Wateringbury if you might want to extend the walk: see below).

† There are no trains from Charing X and Waterloo East because of engineering works.

Trains back from Yalding are hourly at xx:11 (xx:08 from Wateringbury), changing at Paddock Wood for Victoria.

Twyford Bridge This is an easy walk in the Medway valley, with a large chunk of it alongside the river. You'll reach Twyford Bridge before 1pm, with a choice of the “bistro-style café” on Teapot Island or the Boathouse across the river for a pub lunch. The afternoon is a loop out through Yalding village to Hunton, returning to the same places at Twyford Bridge for tea. You could then get to Yalding station via the main road but a slightly longer alternative route would take you through a community orchard, where there might be a few early windfalls to be had.

Optional Extension: If it's a nice day you could carry on alongside the Medway to Wateringbury station, an extra 40 minutes or so.

You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.338 page.

  • 15-Aug-23

    7 walked on a sunny day to Yalding. 4 ate at the Boat House which was quick and high standard. After lunch we found folk singing New Age Gypsies by Tea Pot Island and had ice creams later. An enjoyable day out.

  • 15-Aug-23

    7 sunny

  • 15-Aug-23

    The undoubted highlight of the morning half of this walk was at Sluice Weir Lock on the River Medway where we watched a succession of kayakers hurtle down a steep water channel into the river 9 feet below. We cheered them on and then watched, with some apprehension, an open Canadian style canoe containing two adults and a child follow them down. They hit the bottom pound with a tremendous splash and took on quite a quantity of water which they cheerfully proceeded to bale out as they paddled on. Kudos.

Sean
Extra Walk 338a – Paddock Wood to Yalding or Wateringbury (Short Walk)

Length: 12¼ km (7½ miles) to Yalding, 15 km (9¼ miles) extended to Wateringbury. Toughness: 1/10

10:40 Folkestone train from Charing Cross (Waterloo East 10:43, London Bridge 10:49, Orpington 11:05, etc), arriving Paddock Wood at 11:30. A return to Wateringbury works for both endings (and from London is the same fare as Yalding).

Trains back are hourly (Wateringbury xx:08, Yalding xx:12), changing at Tonbridge. You could also take a train in the opposite direction (Yalding xx:47, Wateringbury xx:51) and change at Strood, but you'd need a supplement for the HS1 to St Pancras.

This is an easy short walk in the Medway valley, with much of it being alongside the river. You'll get to Twyford Bridge soon after 1pm, with a choice of the “bistro-style café” on Teapot Island or the Boathouse across the river for a pub lunch. Afterwards I suggest doing the Short Walk (cutting out the outer loop to Hunton). This will get you back to the refreshment places at Twyford Bridge quite soon, with a final leg through a community orchard to Yalding station. However, if it's a nice day it's worth extending the walk along a pretty stretch of the river to Wateringbury.

You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.338.a page.

  • Anonymous
    17-Sep-21

    The Boathouse is glossy, vapid and has overpriced, and very ordinary, food.

  • 18-Sep-21

    The Ramblers Rest at Wateringbury Marina has home-made cakes and is handy for the station - as is the Railway pub.

  • Anonymous
    19-Sep-21

    It seems, on Trainline, there's a 10 minute change at Tonbridge in the morning also, to arrive Paddock Wood 10.40 rather than 10.30.

  • 19-Sep-21

    The omens were not propitious for this walk: dire weather warnings from the BBC were supplemented by posted comments about the awfulness of the lunch pub and a last-minute assertion that the outward train journey information was incorrect (it wasn't). For a few moments it didn't look as if any other walkers had alighted from the train, but eventually a few turned up from the other end of the platform and a band of 6 set off on a cloudy day.

    Arriving at Twyford Bridge on the stroke of 1pm, one or two looked wistfully at Teapot Island but went along with the majority decision to patronise the "glossy and vapid" Boathouse across the river. Rather surprisingly there was no problem getting an outside table. The menu had a good selection, our orders were taken promptly and although the food and drink took a little while to arrive, it was all fine and there were no complaints.

    Those looking for a very short walk claimed to have felt a few spots of rain but we decided to press on with the short afternoon loop out to Cheveney Mill. At this point the walk author was startled to be recognised by the mill's owner, who turned out to be a workmate from the 1980s; a brief delay ensued as we exchanged gossip about other colleagues. More delights followed when we passed a large array of polytunnels, where a friendly greeting to the strawberry pickers resulted in them kindly passing over a punnet of fruit for us to enjoy.

    A short tea break at Teapot Island and a leisurely stroll through the Community Orchard (sadly denuded of pickable apples) got us to Yalding station in good time for the 16:12, but our return journey was slightly marred by the knock-on effects of earlier signal failures and we had a 35-minute wait for a London train at Tonbridge. On a sunnier day some of us would have happily carried on to Wateringbury, but I think everyone was satisfied today with this easy 7½-miler.

Sean
Extra Walk 338 – Paddock Wood to Yalding
Length: 18¼ km (11.3 miles). Toughness: 2/10

10:01 Ramsgate train from Victoria (Bromley South 10:23), arriving Paddock Wood at 10:58. Buy a return to Yalding.

Trains back from Yalding are hourly at xx:40 and go to Tonbridge, where you change for Victoria or Charing Cross. You could also take a train in the other direction at xx:18 and change at Strood for a High Speed train to St Pancras, but you'd need a more expensive ticket for this route.

Note that trains to and from Tonbridge are running to an amended timetable because of engineering works, but the journey time is not much longer and you've got a choice of London termini on the way back.

In the last couple of months Saturday walkers have been able to try out new Medway valley walks on either side of Maidstone, and this walk continues the exploration a little further upstream. Paddock Wood is not the most rural of starting points but once out of the town and across a main road the rest of the morning is much more pleasant, including an attractive long stretch alongside the meandering River Medway.

There's a tempting riverfront pub at Twyford Bridge but if the Boathouse looks too busy you could continue for a further ten minutes to The George in Yalding, a good-value village pub with its own riverside beer garden. The afternoon is a loop out along the Beult valley, returning to Twyford Bridge for a tea stop at the café on Teapot Island (no tea-bag-in-a-mug here). If you're not in a hurry to catch the hourly train back you can head for the station via a small nature reserve, Yalding Fen.

There are several opportunities to shorten the walk (the ‘official’ one cuts out an outer loop of 5½ km). Conversely, you can extend the walk by continuing to the next station along the Medway Valley line (Wateringbury) or even further, although you ought to buy a ticket to whichever station you plan to return from for this.

You'll need to bring the walk directions from the Paddock Wood to Yalding walk page. T=swc.338