What a bunch of Kents

As I write this, the world has gone through is in the throws of a global viral pandemic. How humanity comes out the otherside is a matter of pure speculation. The only thing that I know, is that if this doesn’t change how our society works, I’m not sure what will.

This blog isn’t about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for the current state of affairs for future readers). It’s about running, hills and adventures on whatever scale you can manage them. That’s what this whole endeavour is about - to keep having fun adventures, no matter what.

Now, obviously, whilst the government mandated lockdown was in place we had to find more local adventures that we could reach on foot or by bike. We had plenty of those, and discovered the delights of the South Cambridgeshire countryside and it’s quaint villages. But there aren’t any hills… For that particular fix we had to wait until the government deemed that the viral pandemic was sufficiently under control that they could relax restrictions on peoples movements and activities. This they did at the end of May, so Julie and I took the opportunity (whilst the roads were still relatively quiet), to take a little drive down the M25 and finally complete a route that we planned originally for the beginning of the year, but was put on hold because of, well, the obvious reason really. Anyway, we drove down to the lovely little hamlet of Titsey, nestled at the foot of the North Downs that spans Surrey, Greater London and Kent. It was the latter 2 counties that we were going to tick this day; the highest point in both is around Westerham heights, just off of the North Downs way. Unfortunately, the true summits are both inaccessible, one (Greater London, 245m) lies just off of the busy A233. You could try to get there by foot - but you’d be taking your life in your hands. Let’s just say we didn’t bother taking that risk. The highest point in Kent is Betsom’s Hill (251m), which is in someone’s garden just the other side of the A233. So that ruled that one out as well. Unperturbed, we scanned the map of the area and realized that the North Downs’ way passes over the county border, and pretty close to the same contour lines as Betsom’s hill and Westerham heights - winner, winner 2 hills for dinner!

After some issues trying to find a suitable parking spot (Kent drivers belong in a special circle of hell), and Google navigator trying to send us up a rutted farm track (Julie is convinced it’s just my terrible navigation, I’m convinced Google maps hates me), we parked next to the picturesque church in Titsey.

We set off up a winding country lane that made it’s way steadily upwards; actually we ran across a field first, but the farmer had blocked the path across it, so we turned around and ran up the road to get around it. Farmers blocking public footpaths, grrrr. This detour knocked a bit of distance off our route, so we added another little 1km detour down the hill towards Clacket lane, before running back up a bridleway and resumed our intended route 50 yards further along the road from where we left off. Running through a very pretty farmyard (very friendly locals), we started to head up hill properly through dappled woodland to reach the North Downs way.

Thankful for the shelter from the blistering sun we trotted along the hard packed track, past massive houses (not a bad place to be stuck in quarantine). Scooching up the side of one of these sprawling pads was a footpath that wound around the perimeter fence and climbed up and up towards the ridge of the North Downs. Unsurprisingly, this exposed our chronic lack of hill fitness (we live in the flattest region in England, what should we expect?!). Up Betsom’s hill we plodded, determined to run at least some sections, we emerged out of the trees along the side of a sheep field scattered with around 20-30 rugby balls. Either they must really like rugby, or they live next to a rugby field and have never kicked the ball back over the fence.

We popped out next to Betsom’s farm and ran until it looked like the path sloped off in both directions from where we stood. The GPS read 251m, bang on!

We snapped our selfie, splashed some tepid water down our parched throats and headed down the track to merge with the North Downs way again. The rutted track soon turned into a metalled road, access for the huge houses overlooking south-west Kent no doubt. For us at least it meant a bit of respite for our ankles, and less effort as we headed gently down-hill for a mile to a cross-roads. Crossing over, we ducked down a small flight of uneven steps, through woodland and ran parallel with the road. We materialised into a vast wild flower meadow, full of small whites, heath browns and other meadow butterflies, and a stunning view across Westerham and the Kent countryside. It made up for the lack of summit view for sure.

Continuing through grassy meadows and coppiced woodland we eventually joined back up with the main road that ran down to Titsey village. Our original plan had been to start the route from Botley Hill, then run down through the grounds of Titsey place. So we continued along the North Down’s way, over the somewhat treacherous path that used to run through shady trees, and was now exposed to the full sunshine. We tried to avoid tripping over the detritus left over from this massive tree-felling effort, undulating over broken ground and rising ever-so-slightly up hill to Botley Hill. Upon reaching the car park we soon realised that the only way to get out of the grounds of Titsey place was via a 2-mile detour underneath the M25 or back out through the car park. Balls. By our reckoning running back the way we had come and down the hill into Titsey would still be about a mile, more than enough to have still covered the mandatory 10km. So, off we trotted, back over the broken logs and twisted branches, thankfully this time we were going down hill. As we passed the spot where we had previously joined, the road and path turned more steeply down-hill. The path hugged the edge of a field, the boundary marked by an old rusty barbed wire fence, that in places had collapsed and was lying in wait for any unsuspecting feet to catch-out. I don’t think I’ve had to concentrate so hard on where to place my feet before, as we dodged around fallen trunks, lengths of barbed wire (neither of us much fancied a trip to the doctor to get a tetanus shot) and the odd rabbit hole. Eventually the gauntlet came to end, unfortunately, so did the footpath! Thankfully, we knew that it was a short distance down to the church so crossed the road to face the traffic and headed for the sanctuary of a large grassy verge we could see about 300 meters down the road. The lack of traffic was certainly in our favour and we made it to safety, finished the final few hundred meters to the church and our car.

The run wasn’t ideal, it was definitely one of the hilliest we’d done (being out of practice didn’t help), and we had to change the route a couple of times. Overall it was enjoyable though, infinitely more so by the fact that we didn’t have to run up a busy A-road and risk our necks for the sake of some arbitrary goal. We finished a lovely trip out with a packed lunch in the shade of the church yard, with a view down to Limpsfield, in the shadow of the M25. I think our greatest relief was that we wouldn’t have to drive back here and deal with the absolute bunch of Kents on the roads.