Pilgrims' Way to Great Buckland on circuit from Holly Hill

We’ve enjoyed all of our walks on the Wealdway, but today’s walk was outstanding, across beautiful North Downs scenery, with the autumn colours just beginning to give a warm glow to the trees. The walking was not all easy; our route involved a descent and ascent of the southern scarp slope of the North Downs and another descent to Great Buckland followed by a climb up the other side of the valley. I was using my walking poles for the first time in ages.

We’d left Norfolk early and had a straightforward drive, along roads that became progressively narrower from the M25/M20 down to narrow unclassified roads and ending with a short section that Apple Maps doesn’t recognise as a road at all, so told us to walk. Strange really, because this road leads to a reasonably-sized car park at Holly Hill (TQ670629). We parked here and set off walking back to the south along the unrecognised road, following the route of the North Downs Way. From very close to the car park there were good views to the north and east, with dockyards and industry near the Thames visible in the distance. There were a surprisingly large number of cars coming towards us, presumably heading to the car park (which had contained just one other car when we arrived).

After a short distance we crossed White Horse Road, the marginally wider road that we had also driven along, and took a path through the woods. We were at the top of the scarp slope and a magnificent panorama opened up in front of us. It was somewhat difficult to photograph because we were looking into the Sun through mist in one direction, whilst there was clear blue sky in the other.

As we descended, the good views reappeared each time we came to a gap in the trees. The wood in this section extends further than the OS map implies, but eventually we reached flatter ground at the edge of the wood, and walked alongside it for a distance, before taking a 90 degree turn and descending more slowly across open ground, now with good views back to the wood cloaking the slope in both directions.

We reached the ancient route of the Pilgrims’ Way, which Wikipedia tells me is the historical route taken by pilgrims from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. It is written “Pilgrim’s Way” on the map. Hmmm – that would be one pilgrim not many. Moving on from my pedantry, back on the walk we continued along the Pilgrims’ Way for about a mile, ascending slightly and re-entering the wood (though still at the bottom of the steep slope). We were overtaken by occasional runners and cyclists.

We passed several paths climbing up the slope, and eventually reached one which was, amazingly (given the paucity of Wealdway signs elsewhere), signposted “Wealdway”. However before taking this path we continued for the short distance to the point at which we had crossed over the Pilgrims’ Way last time we were walking here. This was purely to “join up” the two walks properly, and was a bit unnecessary really; we might be pedants with regard to apostrophes, but we are normally quite relaxed about the exact route that we follow when out walking long distance footpaths.

After returning to the path where the Wealdway joins the North Downs Way, we turned onto the Wealdway and climbed steadily up through the trees – no cyclists or runners here, and the route doesn’t seem to be heavily walked either; we had to pick our way around a few fallen trees and overhanging branches. The slope levelled off and we continued through Whitehorse Wood, passing a group of young men (perhaps practising for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition?) who were taking a break.

We emerged onto White Horse Road (again) at Poundgate, turning right onto the road then left off it again. 500 metres or so further on we reached the very minor Leywood Road. After our early start, I was feeling peckish, but we hadn’t passed any benches or logs on which to sit, so we stopped for a snack at the stile before turning right onto the road and following it to Little Delmar Farm. Here we turned right again, soon entering more woods (Lie Wood and then Luxon Road). There was a pretty valley to our right and soon we began to descend towards the hamlet of Great Buckland. However Richard spotted a convenient log on which to sit, so we stopped for lunch, despite the fact it was only 11.45 and we had stopped for a snack not that far back. A group of walkers, going in the opposite direction to us, passed us as we ate.

We continued our descent past Great Buckland Farm, which is abutted by peculiar round buildings; a quick internet search confirmed that these were oast house roundels before being converted to become part of the house. We reached a road junction (complete with bench on which we could have sat to eat lunch – typical!) and turned back on ourselves, leaving the route of the Wealdway.

We’d spotted two possible routes back to the car, both involving a climb out of the valley in which Great Buckland nestles. We were intending to continue along the road we were on for another few hundred metres before climbing more gradually out of the valley, but I generally prefer a short sharp climb than a longer drawn out one (I prefer the opposite when descending) and we saw an enticing sign up to the left, so took this route. This is signposted as a North Downs Way link path (with the link being to the station at Sole Street, about 3 miles further north on the Wealdway) and after climbing the hill we turned right onto the North Downs Way and followed a by-way through Greatpark Wood.

After joining the other route we might have taken, the by-way became a road and we were soon back at the carpark. I headed off around the wood around Holly Hill, in search of views, but there weren’t any, so we returned to the car for the drive on the Hartfield, where today’s job was collecting all the remaining bedding and pictures from the walls.

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