3 minute read
Ride Guide
S/F: If you haven’t taken your bike on a train before, ignore what you read in the press, railways and bikes are a perfect match in the south-east. Sevenoaks is a prime example: four trains an hour from London, no need to pre-book you or your bike, just turn up and go, leave the car at home.
Leave Sevenoaks station and turn sharp right to follow Granville Road climbing into the town centre, a remarkably pretty mediaeval town packed with cafés and coffee shops. Continue along the High Street to the modest gates of Knole Park, where for some reason cyclists aren’t charged to enter, so overtake the inevitable line of cars riding through the gates into the Deer Park.
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2 Knole House
Knole House is packed with history: from the 1400s an Archbishop's palace, then grabbed by Henry VIII, before passing to the then powerful Sackville family. Take the time to visit, it has treasures, literary history, stories about passionate risqué affairs and, of course, the obligatory ghost. There’s also a fascinating exhibition on conservation.
As an aside, bravo to the National Trust and the Sackville family for allowing cyclists to roam pretty freely around the park; explore a great network of paved roads and tracks, and you may even see the albino deer.
Follow the Greensand Way through the woods towards Ightham Mote — note that while the bridleway follows the ancient sunken road over Wilmot Hill, there’s a drier, easier route running a few yards parallel to the left.
3 Ightham Mote
As you leave the woods, the views of the Weald open up and the track morphs into a gravel farm track
KNOLE KNOW-HOW
descending into Ightham Mote’s ‘hidden valley’. Look out for the beautiful farmyard at the bottom of the hill before you cross the lane to ride through the gates to the manor house itself. The house does not disappoint, it’s bewitchingly beautiful, sitting peacefully in its moat. And the stable café is bike-friendly too.
4 FAIRLAWNE HOUSE
Take care as you cross the busy Tonbridge road into the immaculate Fairlawne House. As you ride up the drive, peek over the hedge into the private Japanese garden before following the stern sign pointing to the bridleway. The path leads through the open parkland and down a proper avenue to the back gates of the estate.
Plaxtol sounds like a type of medical cream for itches, but it’s one of the quaint villages that’s turned its back on the 21st century. If you can, pass the Papermakers Arms, on your way through to Plaxtol Spout; Old Soar Manor, a peaceful Knight’s house dating from 1290 is a half-mile off the route and worth the excursion.
Prepare for a steady climb along a cart track through the orchards, take it gently and eventually you’ll end up in Mereworth Woods, a large area of bike-friendly ancient woodland well worth another trip to explore. The route borders an area that’s recently been coppiced, a traditional form of woodland maintenance that produces open swathes of woodland abounding in wild flowers.
You’re rewarded with a couple of miles of fast flowing fireroads that lead
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you out of the woods to join the quiet country lanes through Couch and the orchards of the Bourne Valley.
5 IVY HATCH
Ivy Hatch, a picture postcard village, is home to the Plough Inn, a gastro pub whose head chef Freddie Innes is a veteran of Masterchef.
Prepare yourself for the final gravel onslaught, a climb to Raspit Hill, where you may have to push your bike over the steps at the base of the hill, but it’s worth the effort as the views over the Weald are stunning. Again, the sunken nature of the bridleway tells you that this is a very ancient way (there's also an easier path a few yards to the left). Follow the ridgeline until the path turns sharp left before descending steeply. Take care as the path becomes moderately gullied and rocky. At the bottom, join the lane into Seal, before joining the busy A25 back into Sevenoaks.
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