On Thursday the 13th of April 2023 Pete and I drove to Eynsford and parked up for a short 2.75 mile walk between two beautiful Kent villages with a castle thrown in for good measure.
We park in the Village Hall Car Park after asking if its okay, only to find there is a free car park further on down the road.
We walk along High Street passing the Five Bells Pub, far too early for any pub to be open.
The Five Bells is first noted in a title deed of 1745. The Malt Shovel appears first in a will of 1743, described as a messuage and malt house. The first mention of the Plough was found in a notice of an auction sale of 1818.
Eynsford is first mentioned in writing in 864, as "Egenes homme". The derivation is unclear, but one possibility is that it represents "Ægen's river-meadow", from the Old English hamm "river-meadow, enclosure".
We pass the War Memorial and Village Sign.
The church is dedicated to St Martin. In about 1163, Thomas Becket is reputed to have excommunicated William de Eynsford, the owner of Eynsford castle. The excommunication was cancelled by King Henry II and the issue became part of the quarrel that led to Becket's murder in 1170.
The church at Eynsford is an exceptional early Norman church that was no doubt built by one of the Archbishop's principal knights, William, son of Ralph, son of Unspac, in the years around 1100.
John Wesley is thought to have preached here: he was a friend of the then vicar of Shoreham, the next village along the valley. The Wesley Stone by the bridge commemorates the spot.
Sadly the church is locked so we leave to walk over to the Ford.
We walk over to the Ford that the River Darent flows over.
Just before the bridge is the Riverside Tea Room is a friendly tea room next to Eynsford's ford offering a selection of freshly made food and great coffee. It offers breakfasts, light lunches and a range of drinks and cakes.
The river is in full flood, a lot higher than I've seen in the past.
We cross the bridge and stop to take in the view back to the Parish Church.
We pass more roadside parking here on Riverside, pass The Plough Inn and walk on up the road.
Further up the road we turn right onto Sparepenny Lane.
After a bit of road walking we take a footpath that runs alongside the Lane.
We have views down to Eynsford Castle and the Village Hall.
Sparepenny Lane has more than a few pennies, the lane is full of expensive looking properties.
We reach the end of the Lane and turn right into High Street at Farningham.
Farningham is believed to be home to Neolithic history – flint and other tools have been discovered and can be found in the Dartford Museum. The Romans occupied the general area after their invasion in the 1st century AD and, along with large evidence of habitation down the road in Lullingstone, there is also evidence of Roman habitation in Farningham. Three farmhouses and three villas have been unearthed. Charles Dickens was a visitor during his time for the trout fishing that the Darent provided.
The Domesday Book records that before the Norman conquest, Farningham was owned by an Anglo Saxon thane called Alstan.
In the nineteenth century Farningham was adopted as the assumed surname of Marianne Farningham, a religious writer and editor, who was born here.
Used only for WW1 there used to be an airfield used by the RAF for emergency landings.
We turn to look at The Mill here in Farningham.
On the left is Bridge Cottage, built in Gothic style in the late 19thC, and Mill Cottages dating from the seventeen hundreds. Ahead of you stands Farningham Mill, "a corn mill built on a most expensive mechanical construction" by the Colyers in the 18th century to replace Anthony Roper's mill of 1610. The Domesday Book noted a water mill in the Manor of "Femingehame" in 1087. In 2013 the mill was restored with some new-build houses on the left.
Across the road is The Lion Hotel.
The Lion has been a popular spot in Farningham since the 16th Century when it was the entertainment centre of the village. Even in the 18th Century the then named Black Lyon, was the venue for all the important village meetings. Such status in the village meant that The Lion was once paid a visit by Charles Dickens whilst on a trout fishing trip.
This magnificent structure at the heart of Farningham Village sits opposite the historic Lion Hotel. It is thought to have been built between 1740 and 1770 although an exact date is not known.
The structure is unique and its purpose has been puzzled over. Once thought to be a folly or the remains of the north side of a medieval bridge, the structure is in fact a cattle screen, built to prevent cattle from wandering downstream whilst crossing the ford.
The Farningham Cattle Screen is the only one in the country to have been constructed in such an ornate way and would probably have been built whilst the Hanger family owned Farningham Manor.
Most cattle screens are constructed in a simple manner with a wooden beam and hanging gates which allow for debris or high water levels to pass through easily but prevent cattle from travelling up or downstream.
Whilst the structure in Farningham contains the hanging gates, the flamboyant nature would suggest that the screen was built to show how wealthy William Hanger was to all who travelled through Farningham.
We walk on further up the road to reach St Peters and St Pauls Church.
The Church of St. Peter & St. Paul which lies in the heart of the Village was built between 1225 and 1245, on the site of where there is thought to have been an early Saxon church. The chancel was probably the original church with the nave being built some 100 years later - and subsequently the tower that dates from the 15th century was further heightened and crenelated in 1830.
Sadly this church was also locked up and was closed.
Walking on we pass The Pied Bull Pub.
The pub was originally built in 1612 as a coaching inn on the main road between London and Dover. Over the years the pub has changed and in its current form has much to offer.
We take a footpath that takes us into Oliver Crescent and then onto Eynsford Road and a footpath that runs alongside.
We could see back up to Sparepenny Lane and the route we took earlier.
We arrive back at the car, passing we walk down to Eynsford Castle, which was sadly closed due to some unsafe conditions they are working on. So I took the best photo I could from where I was.
Eynsford Castle is a ruined medieval fortification in Eynsford, Kent. Built on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon stone burh, the castle was constructed by William de Enysford, probably between 1085 and 1087, to protect the lands of Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, from Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. It comprised an inner and an outer bailey, the former protected by a stone curtain wall. In 1130 the defences were improved, and a large stone hall built in the inner bailey. The de Enysford family held the castle until their male line died out in 1261, when it was divided equally between the Heringaud and de Criol families. A royal judge, William Inge, purchased half of the castle in 1307, and arguments ensued between him and his co-owner, Nicholas de Criol, who ransacked Eynsford in 1312. The castle was never reoccupied and fell into ruins, and in the 18th century it was used to hold hunting kennels and stables. The ruins began to be restored after 1897, work intensifying after 1948 when the Ministry of Works took over the running of the castle. In the 21st century, Eynsford Castle is managed by English Heritage and is open to visitors.
A short 2.75 mile walk but pleasant in the Spring sun!
My friend Colin and I set off from Romford to head over to Kent for a walk on the 3rd November 2016. After a short 45 minute drive we arrived in Shoreham and parked up in the free car park in the village.
The probable derivation of the name is estate at the foot of a steep slope. Steep slope was from the Saxon word scor. pronounced shor, but written sore by Norman scribes.
The village of Shoreham contains four traditional independent pubs:
Ye Olde George Inne, The King's Arms, The Two Brewers and the Crown.
We left the car park walk a short distance up Filston Lane and took the footpath next to the Aircraft Museum that was closed, seems to be open on Sundays only.
Run by local enthusiasts, the Museum is largely funded by proceeds made
by visitors whose donations contribute to the recovery and preservation
of the artefacts. The Battle of Britain, brought the village of Shoreham
directly into the war, when on 15 September 1940, a Dornier Do 17Z,
part of a force of about 100 German bombers approaching London, was
shot down shortly before noon. The invading formation had been
challenged by nine RAF
squadrons and the battle developed into a series of individual
'dogfights'. The unfortunate pilot of the Dornier was forced to land in a
field at Castle Farm, with a Spitfire
circling overhead, its cockpit canopy open, and its pilot waving a
handkerchief, to signal a warning to the growing crowd of hop-pickers
nearby to stay away until the Shoreham Home Guard
arrived to recover the German crew. Feldwebel Heitsch, the pilot and
Feldwebel Pfeiffer, the observer, were driven to The Fox & Hounds
pub in Knatts Valley, where they were bought a brandy before being
driven to Sevenoaks Police Station. The museum holds a collection of
photographs of the Dornier, along with items taken from the wreckage at
the time.
The Darent valley was one of the major areas of Stone Age settlement; and Shoreham is mentioned in the Domesday Book.
It was also known as a smuggling
area. Moreover, Shoreham was the most bombed village in the United
Kingdom during the Second World War due to the fact the Army took over
several manor houses for operational use.
Papermaking was once a local industry; the mill closed finally in 1925.
We climb steeply up the hill to a wooded area that offers great views back across the Darent valley.
View to Shoreham
Looking down on Filston Farm
We descend back down the hill to Filston Land again and a short way up the lane we enter the footpath that runs through Filston farm.
Filston Farm is 1500 acres on which wheat,peas,oats,oil seed rape and grass is grown as well as pasture for sheep,cows,alpacas and horses.
Oast Houses now converted. But a sure sign you're in Kent.
We made our way through the farmland across paths, missing the first planet Pluto on the Solar System model.
The model, the largest
in the world, was created to celebrate the millennium and shows the
relative positions of the Sun and planets at midnight on 1 January 2000.
Considerable effort was required to design an accurate layout
that gave public access to every planet. Each planet is on a concrete pillar, drawn to the same scale as
the model as a whole. On
this scale, the nearest star would be in Los Angeles.
We now leave the farmland out onto the High Street in Otford, where we see the first of the planets 'Uranus'.
We walk up the High Street passing Broughton Manor.
Broughton Manor was the property of the Crown at the time of Henry VIII and was used to house part of the retinue at the Archbishops Palace.
A 16th century house with 17th,18th and modern alterations.
OTFORD'S rich and fascinating history includes two
battles, the construction and ruin of a royal palace and at least 3,000
years-worth of inhabitants.
Since the early dwellers set up home
next to the river Darent, Otford has been inhabited by Iron Age farmers,
Romans, Anglo-Saxons and royalty.
The ancient village adopted its name in the sixth or seventh century, from the Anglo-Saxon, Ottanford, meaning Otta's ford.
Otta was a man of local authority, and his ford ran where the High Street now bridges the Darent river.
We pass two lovely Tudor buildings called Pickmoss House. Looks can be deceptive. The break in the roofline defines the new and the old. The timber frame to the left replaced brickwork in 1951, even though its heart is a 14th century house.
The residents of the duck house on Otford Pond have been a feature of
the village for several years now. They will never go hungry, due to the
number of visitors who like to indulge in the age-old pleasure of
feeding the ducks. The attractive pond with its willow trees forms a
natural roundabout in the centre of the village and is unusual in that
it has been granted listed status. The pond is thought to date back to
Anglo Saxon times, when it was probably used as a drinking hole for
local livestock.
Opposite the pond is St Bartholomews Church. Otford parish church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to Saint Bartholomew,
and built as a Chapel-of-Ease to Shoreham. The church dates to the Saxo-Norman overlap,
with the addition of a tower around 1175 – spire not added until the 17th century.
In the graveyard is buried Tom Pryce. Auto Race Car Driver. Born the son of a policeman in Ruthin,
Denbighshire, Wales, he entered Formula 1 racing in 1974 with the Token
team, but soon moved to the Shadow team. Considered an exceptional
driver, and many thought he had the ability to reach the very top of his
sport, his best results were a third place in the 1975 Austrian Grand
Prix and the 1976 Brazilian Grand Prix. He tragically lost his life in a
somewhat bizarre accident at the 1977 South African Grand Prix at
Kyyalami. Another driver had retired his car when an insignificant fire
started. Two marshals sprinted across the track to put the fire out just
as Pryce and Stuck appeared at top speed. Pryce struck one of the
marshals, killing him, but the fire extinguisher the marshal was
carrying struck the driver full in the face killing him instantly. The
Shadows car careered along down the straight until it hit a crash
barrier. Buried at St. Bartholomew's Churchyard, Otford, nr Sevenoaks,
Kent.
We sat outside the church on a bench overlooking the pond and shops and ate our lunch. Its far busier here than Shoreham with much noise from traffic passing through.
After seeing a palace on the map, we ask some people cutting down
bushes and tidying the green where it was. She points off down the road
by some shops.We walked off and after a distance, thought she must be
wrong it looks closer on the map so we walk back. But the lady catches
us and asked if we found it, well we couldnt say no now so back we went
along the road to find it.
We did find it a little further along the road.
Otford Palace, also known as the Archbishop's Palace.
The King of Mercia, Offa, fought the Kentish Saxons in 776 at the Battle of Otford. From those times until 1537, the palace was one of the chain of houses belonging to the archbishops of Canterbury. It was rebuilt around 1515 by Archbishop Warham to rival that of Cardinal Wolsey at Hampton Court. Henry VIII forced Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to surrender the palace in 1537.
When Henry died the palace fell into ruin. The principal surviving
remains are the North-West Tower, the lower gallery, now converted to
cottages, and a part of the Great Gatehouse. There are further remains
on private land, and a section of the boundary wall can be seen in
Bubblestone Road. The entire site, of about 4 acres (1.6 ha) is
designated as an ancient monument. There are many related buildings in
the village, including a wall in St Bartholomew's Church dating from c. 1050.
In 1519 Henry VIII stayed there with his court and hunted in the great
Deer Park that was attached to the palace. The Palace must have met
his approval because the following year Henry and Catherine of Aragon
along with the royal court stayed there as they made their way to France
for the meeting between Henry and Francis, King of France, at the Field
of Gold. This must have been a magnificent occasion, as the court that
accommodated Henry was believed to have numbered over 3000.
Between 1532 and 1533 Princess Mary, the future Queen of England
stayed there as a refuge from the political and religious turmoil that
was engulfing England after the end of her mothers marriage to Henry.
On leaving the palace site, we can see just up the road to where the ladies were that gave us directions. Were they having us on? They sent us a long way round to get there!
Now we looked for the path to continue our journey, but we had a little trouble. The map wasn't clear or we were crap at navigating (probably the latter) and we ended up walking up Station Road before realising we were wrong. Then down another road,wrong again. We were looking for the sun pub to turn off by. Then realising our mistake we were looking for the sun from the Solar System model, Duh!!
Anyway we found the path and headed off into the Recreation ground, where the rest of the Solar System and the sun was!
The Solar System Model
We leave the recreation ground and follow a footpath come bridlepath back towards Shoreham.
There is a white memorial cross in the hillside opposite the village
church. It was dug in 1920 as a memorial to local men killed in action.
We exit the footpath out into Shoreham on Station Road after passing the golf course.
We reach The Ye Olde George Inn. Ye Olde George Inn is a 16th century local community pub.
Opposite The Ye Olde George Inn is St Peter & St Paul Church.
The porch is of very solid fifteenth-century workmanship with good,
though weathered, carvings in the spandrels and plain bargeboards above.
Inside the church the greatest treasure is the rood screen, with its
original loft - 6 ft 6 in wide. It shows the Pomegranate of Catherine of
Aragon carved on its door, and this may help us date it to the visit of
Henry VIII and his queen to nearby Otford Palace in 1520. The pulpit of
1827 is by Blore and is one of two in the county that originally stood
in Westminster Abbey (the other is at Trottiscliffe). In the south wall
is a window of 1903 depicting Joy, Creation and Love by the firm of
Morris and Co. A most unusual thing to find is the painting of Lt Verney
Cameron, who led the expedition to find David Livingstone in 1873,
painted by Charles Cope RA.
We left the church and head back out onto Church Street and pass Ye Olde George again on its other side.
A recent Halloween decoration ?
We now come to the River Darent and its beautiful bridge!
Here we sat by the river and the Shoreham War Memorial and had a cup of coffee and enjpyed the peace and quiet listening to the river bubble by.
The memorial is composed of a Kent rag stone base and Bath stone plinth
with a headstone shaped memorial on top. Interestingly, the inscription
on the memorial calls for those who visit the memorial to refer to a
large chalk cross located on a nearby hill which could originally be
seen from the memorial. The inscriptions were originally carved into the
stone, but the names on the plinth have since been covered with bronze
plaques.
It commemorates those lost in WWI and WWII as well of those lost in the bomb raids here in Shoreham.
A historic feature to the left of the front door, is the Jolly Ostler's Box with serving hatch,
believed to be the only complete example left in the country.
We arrive back at the car and decided we didn't have time to extend the walk onto Lullingstone Castle today as we were short on time, so the 6 mile walk ended here. However we did decide to drive to the castle for a look and drove there via beautiful Eynsford.
Lullingstone Castle is an historic manor house, set in an estate in the village of Lullingstone and the civil parish of Eynsford in the English county of Kent. It has been inhabited by members of the Hart Dyke family for twenty generations including current owner Guy Hart Dyke.
Mentioned in the Domesday Book, the present house was started in 1497. Henry VIII and Queen Anne were regular visitors to the Manor House.
The Tudor gatehouse, built by Sir John Peche, who became Sheriff of Kent in 1495, is believed to be one of the first in England entirely of brick.What survives of the house is largely of the Queen Anne era.
The surrounding 120-acre (0.49 km2) park was previously a fenced deer park, with the castle serving as a hunting lodge. The grounds are located on the River Darent and hidden within are Queen Anne's bathhouse and an icehouse dating from the 18th century. Most of the grounds of the former estate now constitute Lullingstone Country Park.
It also contains some of the oldest oak trees in Britain,
wildflowers, a church (St Botolph's) of Norman and possibly earlier
foundation but much later restoration and rebuilding, and a walled
garden, and used to contain Lullingstone Roman Villa.
The Castle was previously home to the Lullingstone Silk Farm which produced silk for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gown. In 2011, the Castle was the location for the Comparethemarket.com advert 'Tough decision', featuring meerkats Sergei and Aleksandr.
The walled garden - previously a herb garden designed by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde - has recently been converted into the World Garden of Plants by the Castle's current heir (and 20th generation of the Hart Dyke's), plant hunter Tom Hart Dyke. The garden and the castle are open to the public from April through to September.
The castle was closed now and wont open again until April, it had a £8 entry fee.
This impressive nine-arched red-brick viaduct is a prominent feature on the line
to the delightfully-named ''Bat & Ball'' station. The structure was built by the
independent ''Sevenoaks Railway'', incorporated in 1859 to link the ''Chatham''
main line with the market town of Sevenoaks. The branch was initially
single-track, seeing its first services on 2nd June 1862, but the viaduct was
built to accommodate two tracks from the outset, because the line was doubled in
the following year. A Maidstone extension from Otford opened on 1st June 1874,
this again single-track, but following in the footsteps of the original Bat &
Ball line, this was soon doubled, two-track working commencing on 11th August
1875. The viaduct has nine arches of 30-foot span, and rises to a height of
75-feet above the valley.
After passing through Eynsford we pass Eynsford Castle on the road above it and stop for a quick picture.
Standing within a picturesque village, Eynsford Castle is a rare example
of an early Norman 'enclosure castle'. Built by the Eynsford family,
the castle became the subject of a disputed inheritance. It culminated
in an act of vandalism in 1312. From that point, the castle was
abandoned.
Rather than having a keep or motte, like most Norman castles, Eynsford
was instead protected by an extensive curtain wall. Today, parts of the
wall survive to their impressive full height alongside the remains of
the hall building, where the inhabitants would have lived.
The castle was founded shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066. There
was an earlier, Saxon building on the site, composed of a timber
watchtower on an artificial motte. No evidence of this can be seen
today.
The impressive curtain wall was built between 1085 and 1087, probably by
William de Eynsford I, a knight and sheriff of Kent. In 1130 the wall
was heightened and a gate-tower was built to strengthen the castle
defences. A hall, which provided accommodation for the Eynsford family,
and associated buildings were also erected inside the castle walls about
this time. These buildings were reconstructed in about 1250, following a
fire.
We now drove on home. A beautiful walk through some of Kent's prettiest villages. A great walk too!
