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PREFACE

The first collection of Kent walks appeared in 1988, a few months after the landscape was drastically changed by the hurricane of October 1987. A second collection, with a broader reach across the county, was published in two volumes in 1994 and 1995. Later, in 2007, it was decided to select the best walks from previous collections and present them in a new edition. Having gone through three updated reprints, it’s now time for a complete revision. This is it.

We’ve spent a year checking and re-checking the routes for this edition, travelling to every corner of Kent and being reminded, yet again, what a wonderfully diverse county this is. One day we might be wandering across the North Downs, plunging into what appeared to be a secretive little valley in which we’d discover a hamlet lost to the world. Another day might find us following a path beside saltings, whose exposed mudflats bore the prints of scores of gulls and waders that rose as one, wheeled across the water and returned to land as though they’d forgotten something important.

Some days we’d take a clifftop path with a view across the Channel to France; on another we’d be tracing the Greensand Ridge, the Weald spreading into remote distances below and beyond. There were woodland walks, walks that took us through orchards, vineyards and (rarely nowadays) the once-ubiquitous hop gardens. Our paths have drawn us through fields of barley, wheat and oats. We’ve wandered beside streams and rivers, watched kingfisher, heron and more ducks and geese than we could count, and listened on so many outings to the mewing cry of a buzzard. A fallow deer has sometimes crossed our path; we’ve stood for ages, barely breathing, to study an adder curled asleep on a half-cut log in the sunshine. One morning I watched a mother ewe licking clean her moments-old lamb as she expelled the after-birth into the grass behind her.

We’ve been walking in all weathers: in winter, muffled against the cold, frost on the ground, elm and oak producing stark outlines, naked without their leaves. In spring we’ve almost tiptoed among cowslips as a fresh breeze huffed along the Downs. In summer heat we’ve waded through waist-high grass, elbowed aside the nettles and gathered blackberries. In autumn we’ve scuffed dried leaves and picked sweet chestnuts. The changing seasons have been marked by what we’ve seen in the hedgerows; welcoming spring’s celandine in meadow and bluebell in woodland shaw; summer’s dog rose and elder in flower; autumn’s old man’s beard and softening sloe.

And every day out has been a joy.

One summer Saturday our walk took us through a churchyard where guests were gathered for a wedding, all after-shave, shiny shoes and Ascot hats. Out of the churchyard the path led across a series of sheep-grazed meadows where we were followed by the quintessential country parish sound of a peal of bells. Two miles later the bells could still be heard as we strolled through an avenue of stately lime trees in whose shade heavy-fleeced ewes lay panting.

Kent is a beautiful county, and walking the footpaths reveals it at its best. Not only the countryside, but its buildings too. According to Kent County Council there are more than 20,000 historic buildings that bless this county of ours. Twenty thousand! There are two cathedrals, many castles, numerous stately homes. There are Wealden hall houses, the weight of the centuries etched in every beam, and tile-hung cottages adorned with rose and old-fashioned clematis. There are splendid half-timbered pubs revived from coaching inns, and farms dating from the fifteen- or sixteen-hundreds that have passed from one generation to another.

A few days ago we checked the final walk for this collection. It just happened to be my favourite – as well as one of the closest to home. I don’t know how many times we’ve walked it – or variations of it – over the years we’ve lived here, but it never ceases to surprise with its beauty and sheer variety.

Midway through the morning we emerged below a woodland to a panoramic view as vast and exciting as any in all of Southern England, and there we rested on a seat erected in memory of a local farmer; a charming, generous man with a passion for nature and an environmentalist’s attitude towards the husbandry of his land. (I found it hard to believe it’s 20 years since I attended his funeral.) Several miles and a couple of hours later, we came by chance upon his son who took over the farm from him. We’ve known each other since he was a teenager (he’s a grandfather now), and we were soon chewing the cud, discussing his crops and sharing his father’s passion for the countryside as we talked of the heavy-leaved trees, the long feathery grasses, and the meadows patched with ‘common’ flowers. And we both agreed that it’s too easy to take the beauty of such everyday plants as daisy, stitchwort, the yellow ragwort and even the massed ranks of cow parsley for granted; for each one is a miracle of nature, as exquisite and worthy of attention as the rarest orchid.

Shortly after parting with a handshake, we found a log in an elm tree’s shade, and perched ourselves on it to eat our picnic of home-made bread with cheese and salad from the allotment, drank a flask of tea and basked in the gentle warmth of late July. The head of a green woodpecker appeared from the meadow grass. Then it disappeared to attack something unseen by us, before rising with a yaffling cry and flying away towards a line of willows with that familiar riding-the-waves swooping flight we’ve seen so often on our walks.

There was not much in the way of birdsong; summer is too far advanced for that. But the air was thick with other sounds – the soft buzz and hum of insects that are all too easily dismissed as ‘silence’. There was the summery smell of the countryside too; warm grass and honeysuckle, almost – but not quite – overpowered by sheep dung. (This is a sheep-grazing county, after all.) And there were no distant views to be had from our log seat; just a half mile of meadow, then a block of trees to deny us the hills we’d walked along in the morning. But we were happy, and we knew it. We needed nothing more.

During the year that we’ve walked and re-walked the routes in this book we’ve recorded a number of changes. Some have led to the re-routing of a short section of footpath; one or two have led to the creation of a major variation. In a few cases, orchards described in the previous edition have been grubbed out, while others have appeared where before there might have been a meadow, or they’ve been replaced by a vineyard, say, or a field of soft fruit. One walk crossed a golf course the last time we checked it a couple of years ago - not any more, the golf course is now farmland.

The demand for housing has enlarged some villages, and one or two towns are encroaching into Kent’s countryside. We found a few country pubs that have closed, but we’ve also discovered a small café resurrected in a village high street, and in one notable case a Community Shop has opened, serving tea or coffee with a view to linger over. But most of the changes have been where stiles have been replaced by kissing gates – and I’ve welcomed each one. (In an earlier collection of Kent walks I said that if I ever made a fortune I’d replace every stile in the county with a kissing gate. Now it looks as though KCC is doing it for me!)

So here we have a collection of 40 of our favourite walks, revisited and largely rewritten since the previous edition was put together a decade ago. As you walk them, you’ll come to understand what a richly varied county this is. But wherever your footpaths lead, I hope you’ll gain as much pleasure as my wife and I continue to do every time we go walking in Kent. Enjoy every step, and treasure each new day as the gift it is.

Kev Reynolds

Summer, 2017