North Downs Way

The North Downs Way is a 153-mile walk along the North Downs, from Farnham in Surrey to Dover, with a loop to Canterbury at the eastern end. It’s not a route that was high on our wish list of walks to complete…until we walked two short (one very short) stretches when staying at The Smithy, a cottage in the hamlet of Bodsham in the Kent Downs in July 2025.  The weather was distinctly mixed when we were at The Smithy, hence the shortness of these walks, but they were both lovely, with spectacular views from the top of the scarp slope of the Downs. The map immediately below shows these two walks while the one at the bottom of the page puts our short walks in the context of the whole North Downs Way.

Also, the owners of The Smithy have helpfully created a folder of eight or so circular walks from the cottage. We only managed the first (shortest) of these, but it was glorious, though lovely rolling countryside, past a long barrow near Shrub’s Wood and so to Hastingleigh. Another mile or so would have brought us to the North Downs Way, but instead we chose to return to the cottage by road.  This walk, which we completed on 19th July 2025, is shown in purple on the map above.

Our first walk along the North Downs Way itself was a brief potter (shown in pink above) from the car park at Farthing Common (TR136404) on 21st July 2025. It was forecast to be the wettest day of the week, so we’d stayed at the cottage in the morning, then popped out to buy food at a supermarket on the outskirts of Folkestone. There was a heavy shower as we set off on the return journey, but it had eased by the time we reached the car park so we stopped. The North Downs Way was signposted on a good path alongside the B2068 to the north, but well screened from it, so we set off, not expecting to get very far. 

There were lovely views to the east and we managed to walk further than we’d expected to, crossing a minor road then turning away from the B2068 and onto Cobb’s Hill to the point where the path started its descent towards Stowting Court. With the uncertain weather, I don’t think we’d have walked further than this whatever, but some distant thunder claps and a threatening sky confirmed that turning around was the best course of action. We didn’t get wet, and we were rewarded by seeing a fox on our return walk. We’d walked 1.8 miles. 0.9 mile in each direction.

On the final full day of our holiday, 24th July 2025, the weather forecast for the morning was reasonable, with rain expected in the afternoon, so we set off promptly on a more purposeful walk on the North Downs Way. This walk is shown in blue on the map above. We parked at the Wye Downs car park at TR079454, which we’d passed when driving to our cottage from the village of Wye. We joined the path at the top of the steeply sloping Wye National Nature Reserve, before cutting through a wooded section and crossing the road and onto a continuation of the path, now with more agricultural land to the right, though still with the spectacular views to the Stour Valley to the left. We passed through a field of sheep and reached the point marked as “Wye Crown” on the map,  though we didn’t fully appreciate what “Wye Crown” meant  until later.

The path turned right and climbed alongside woodland to a minor road at the brow of the hill where we turned left for a short distance before turning left back through the wood and descending steeply. We think the path may have gone through the woods until recently, thereby eliminating part of the ascent and descent, but the route we took was fine. The descent continued straight down to another minor road, then angled slightly to the right and on down to Wye. We had a short walk around the village, where the former site of Wye College is being turned into residential accommodation. The village is a pretty place with lots of interesting buildings including the Church, which we walked to, and a 17th Century  bridge over the River Stour, which we didn’t walk to, but had driven over - though our strongest memory of the village is the length of time the level crossing at the station remains closed!

From Wye, we retraced our steps and from below, the Wye Crown, the shape of a crown cut into the chalk, was very clear. Apparently the original work was done in 1902 to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII, but it must have been refreshed several times and when we got back to the site on the hill, there was a commemorative marker to a later anniversary of some sort. We returned to the car for lunch then drove on to the fascinating Belmont House, famous for its collection of clocks.