Borough Green

Introduction

This walk started at Borough Green station, a fact which I had totally forgotten by the time I had to buy my railway ticket. I remembered that the train had destination Canterbury though so I bought a ticket there. Sigh. :)

Borough Green

We got off to a fantastic start with the quality walk instructions; after getting a little distance from the station and onto the main road, the instructions said to 'continue until you reach the bus station'. We continued for about a kilometre before deciding (from the crappy map in the guide, combined with the proper OS map that mum had brought) that we'd gone too far, and adjusting our route.

A Morgan dealership that might, possibly, have been a bus station once upon a time.

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Our new route took us off on a minor road, then along a footpath back to the other minor road we were supposed to have been on in the first place.

The footpath looked like this, so it was a pleasant enough detour.

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Back on the route, another footpath quickly left the 'correct' road.

OK so it was technically a bridleway.

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A hint of weather to come.

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A choice of tracks, at which the guide was unsurprisingly silent.

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That field. (Dunno why, I just liked it.)

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Platt

Then we took our second detour, this one intentional, to see the local church for a village called Platt.

Crazy trumpet things. I have no idea what these are for. Maybe they're attached to the organ, but they aren't anywhere near it and there was a guy doing organ practice at the time which didn't do anything up this end...

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My favourite thing about the church tower was the metal strengthening things in it. Makes it look tough, like studs in a leather jacket.

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Nice lights on thin metal arches, too.

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We left Platt along the road past some orchards.

Converted oast house, now a hugely expensive person-house. Still a cool shape, though.

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An orchard. (Yes, I reduced the colour. Looked pretty dull to begin with.)

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Barn with noose. (Scary!)

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Plantation

Our route led through a large forest plantation.

Old tree among new.

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A huge vehicle of some kind had evidently been along this track not very long ago...

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...and this stripped clearing was the result.

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We stopped in that clearing to have lunch. As we were finishing, it started to rain. The weather forecast had suggested a cold but sunny day; but you can probably tell from the crappy lighting on these pictures that we barely saw the sun, and it rained most of the afternoon. I don't very much mind but it did mean I had to put the camera away most of the time.

Old Soar Manor

At least it wasn't called Cold Soar.

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This was some kind of old house (National Trust), but it only opened between May and September or something, and wasn't that impressive outside.

Somewhere else

After that we basically walked through some fields (including one with bulls in, but they didn't bother us) and eventually reached some place or other which had once had a water mill or two, and still had a very deep brick-walled stream - kind of cool, especially as there were bridges across it to houses, and it had waterfalls.

Back to Borough Green

With no help whatsoever from the guide, which led us completely the wrong way, we eventually divined the correct route from the OS map again. It led across the stream and back into Borough Green.

You think?

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At a long-closed petrol station.

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Nice milepost by the main road.

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And that's it! I think we probably actually walked more like ten miles than seven, thanks to the several intentional and unintentional detours. We do not plan to use that guidebook again. :)