3 men on a walk 2015: Around the North Downs from West Kingsdown

West Kingsdown to Wrotham loop

We are fast running out of new places to walk so sitting in front of an Ordnance Survey map we selected this area of the North Downs as we have not really walked this part of the county before. So having decided that a good start point would be the village of West Kingsdown the next decision to make is where will we find a decent pub about 2 hours walk away! In this instance the ancient village of Wrotham fitted the bill and with THREE good pubs in the village we just had to plot a route that took us here.

The day started wet but the weather lady reliably told us that it would pass by 9-00am and the rest of the day would be dry with high cloud and also be un-seasonably warm at 15 deg C. By the time we had driven to our start and booted up it was 10-00am and Carol the weather lady was true to her word.

Just about half a mile from West Kingsdown we came across another Norman Church dating from the early 1100's. This is the second such church we have fallen across in the past 3 weeks and its marvellous to see these ancient structures not just still standing but being used regularly as well.

The paths we had chosen took us across the North Downs towards the southern escarpment and after about 4 miles we reached the southern edge and had to drop down the steep south face of the downs to reach the village of Wrotham nestled under it. It was "The Bull" that we ended up in for our lunch time stop.

After lunch the trail took us westward along the bottom edge of the downs for about 3 miles before turning us North and up the steep escarpment to reach the top of the downs once more. After a heavy lunch we all found the legs needed a bit of stimulation to keep pushing on, across the downs again and back to West Kingsdown and the car home.