Wrotham Heath to Pilgrims' Way on circuit from Trosley Country Park

This was planned as a relatively short walk, to be completed prior to our drive home after a bank holiday weekend in Sussex. We’d spent most of the previous day sorting out the paper copies of music composed by Richard’s father, and we had planned to take the filing cabinet holding the music home with us. Thus it was that we were seen to be seen manoeuvring the rather heavy filing cabinet downstairs and into the car before driving to Trosley Country Park (entrance at TQ634612) in the North Downs to start our walk. It had rained virtually all the previous day, but today was dry and the sun even came out from time to time.

The Country Park doesn’t open until 9am and we had thought this might delay us, but by the time we had packed up in Hartfield, driven to the North Downs and parked the car it was around 9.20am – perfect timing! The walk fitted nicely into the morning and passed through extremely attractive countryside on the North Downs and just to the south. The one downside was the traffic noise, which was invasive when we were close to the M20 and M26, and never completely went away.

The Country Park is up on top of the chalk ridge of the Downs, so our first task, after finding the path (the North Downs Way at this stage) was to descend the scarp slope. Our route followed an old track through the woods which cloak much of the escarpment. A short distance down we passed what appeared to be the remains of a walled garden, and a padlocked gate in the wall revealed an orchard with the attractive views to the south beyond.

At the bottom of the hill we left the North Downs Way and took a minor road which continued to descend to the settlement known as Wrotham Water, though there is only a small expanse of water shown on the map, and a spring. We didn’t pass either, instead continuing past the attractive “Oast Cottage”. A couple of cyclists came heading down the hill behind us, but before they reached us we heard the noise of metallic snapping, and when we looked behind us slightly later, one of the bikes was upside down being inspected by its rider; we’ve commented on this before: cycling may be faster than walking when all goes to plan, but bikes do seem to malfunction rather a lot. The cyclists didn’t overtake us as we continued around a bend then turned left and crossed over the M20 and under the M26.

Just past the M26 we reached an extremely attractive old house – this is Ford Place; what a pity it is so close to the motorway. Shortly afterwards, we turned right into the wood and took a path (the Wealdway) through the woods to emerge at a bus stop by the A20, just by its junction with the A25 - almost exactly opposite the point at which we sat eating apples on Saturday. We turned around and retraced our steps through the woods, but rather than turning left to walk past Ford Place and under the M26, we continued straight ahead on a footpath, remaining on the Wealdway.

The path was next to a fence, which made it rather narrow, especially when the fence had fallen over, but there were lovely views to Ford Place and the ridge of the North Downs beyond. We reached a minor road and turned left, following this around a bend then off on another footpath through woods, edging closer and closer to the motorways. It would have been attractive if it were not for the noise!

We took a sandy subway under the motorway, now just the M20 as the motorways had merged in the mile or so since we last crossed them. To the north of the motorway lies a large sand quarry which we crossed, then turned right along a minor road for a short distance. We took a left hand turn then almost immediately took a footpath off the road, and soon we were walking north through Ryarah Wood, back towards the North Downs. We glimpsed occasional views to the village of Trottiscliffe (pronounced "Trosley", as the name of the Country Park where we'd parked is both written and said), and the Church at Trosley Court.

Shortly after leaving the wood we reached Coldrum Long Barrow, a burial chamber built around 3000 BC, and one of the "Medway Megaliths". I found this slightly disappointing; you only get access to a path around the monument and it was quite busy. From here our path climbed quite markedly to the ancient route of the Pilgrims' Way, here at the bottom of the steep scarp slope of the North Downs.

We sat on a bench and ate apples before leaving the Wealdway and rejoining the North Downs Way for the climb up the slope on a characteristically chalk-land sunken track. We took it slowly, but were only passed by two runners, who were going scarcely faster than us! At the top of the slope we joined a level track through the Country Park which was pleasant enough but much busier, and we arrived back at the car park to find people scrabbling to find parking places. The cafe was busy too; it has inside and outside seating and we opted for inside because of the large number of yappy dogs outside, only to find ourselves next to a very unhappy toddler inside. We had quite a long queue to order our lunchtime sandwiches, but once ordered they came quite quickly, and the journey back to Norfolk was surprisingly quick for a bank holiday weekend - thank you to my new phone and Apple Maps for directing us a traffic-free route to the Dartford Crossing!

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