26th February 2025
Petts Wood to Hayes (Kent)
The promise of a dry day in between wet days (should have thought about that) saw me out again to complete another section of the London Loop trail. A fairly long one at 9.3 miles from station to station but mostly through countryside with very little road walking. Alighting at Petts Wood station about 11:40 I retraced my steps from 15thOctober 2024 to the start of the section at Jubilee Country Park.
The path soon became a bit wet and muddy, ideal opportunity to try my new walking gaiters, a Christmas present, and hopefully keep most of the shite off my trousers. After exiting the park came the only significant bit of suburban road walking along Faringdon Avenue lined with classic interwar semis before entering Crofton Woods and climbing gently up a path that was more like a shallow stream. Where possible it was better to walk in the flowing water because where it wasn’t flowing the mud was quite deep. After crossing the East Kyd Brook on a small wooden bridge the land rose and it became a little easier to avoid the mud. In between the detritus of winter a few patches of Crocus were pushing up. Spring is on the way.
I came out of the woods at the top of Tubbendon Meadow, a high grassy area with far reaching views to the south. I paused to admire the view and had a chat with a lady sitting on a bench and her Old English sheepdog. Yes it was the dog that initiated contact. I’d have stopped for lunch here but I suspect I might have had to share my picnic with my new-found four-legged friend :-) So I carried on downhill to Farnborough, passed through the village centre and around the church of St. Giles the Abbot (no relation to Russ) whose churchyard also contained a lot of crocuses, and stopped on a bench just outside the churchyard overlooking a wide open field with woods to the left.
Fortified by a cheese and ham pasty and some Bovril (always take a flask of Bovril on winter walks is my advice, it travels better than coffee and tea from a flask is an abomination) I carried on down the hill following the signs to High Elm Country Park.
Of High Elms the Loop guide says:
High Elms Country Park was originally the country home of the Lubbock family. It covers over 400 acres of woodlands, orchid rich grasslands and a golf course. Sir John Lubbock, an MP, wealthy banker, author and scientist lived at High Elms and was a close friend of Charles Darwin. The park now features the BEECHE Centre, a sustainable education and visitor centre, run by Bromley Council and ID Verde, which also offers refreshment and toilet facilities.
The latter were certainly welcome. An unusual feature near the toilets is an outdoor Eton Fives court. Further on in the park is the site of the former Lubbock mansion house which was destroyed by fire. Its location marked between the formal gardens with bricks inset into the grass to indicate where the corners of the building were.
I passed through an avenue of Yews, through the golf club car park, across the road, through a small rather sparse Community Orchard, and turned up the steepish hill to pass between the 13th and 18th fairways to enter the woods of Blacklands. I emerged from the woods onto North End Lane and followed it left for a short distance alongside a high hedge with many Hazel catkins dangling in the weak sunshine. After about 60 yards I turned right onto the childishly amusingly named Bogey Lane. This ancient sunken greenway runs uphill between hedges and being sunken naturally collects “moisture”. For the first part an alternative path runs parallel on the edge of the field above the lane but where the field edge bears away left it is necessary to drop back down into the sunken lane. The fields on either side contain a number of small paddocks and pony stables so naturally the surface of Bogey Lane has been churned into a quagmire by thoughtless gits on their hay-burners. In places it’s very much boggy lane, I wonder if that might have been the origin of the name? A search of the web reveals no clues.
The tarmac of Farthing Street almost came as a welcome and some long grass at the side helped lighten the load on my boots before heading down the twisty lane and across Shire Lane to a footpath hemmed in between a hedge and a barbed wire fence that ran beside the busy road for a short distance before turning away to go around a farm shop and pet food warehouse. Looking up to the right from this path there’s a good view of Holwood House up on the hill, of which the Loop guide notes:
The house became an important meeting place for political figures after it was acquired by William Pitt the Younger in 1784. The house was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1826 by Decimus Burton.
Now the path turns steeply up a long hill, crossing the drive to Holwood House just outside its very firmly closed gates with prominent CCTV, and carries on climbing until it reaches the Wilberforce Oak and the Wilberforce Seat memorials. The Loop guide explains that:
The Wilberforce Oak commemorates the spot, where it is said, William Wilberforce had a conversation with William Pitt the Younger in 1788 and vowed to promote the abolition of the slave trade. He led a campaign which resulted in the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.
The stone Wilberforce Seat is secured behind stout steel fencing. Fortunately alongside is a very welcome public bench seat affords a view past the oak over the landscape to the south-west but more importantly somewhere to rest after the long climb (and drink the remainder of your Bovril).
The path levels out here and leads on through the woods - sunlit at this point - before dropping down to cross Westerham Road and entering Keston Common, where it runs downhill alongside an Iron Age bank and ditch to reach a car park. Beyond the car park a set of steep steps leads to Caesar’s Well. It’s not actually a well but the spring which is the source of the River Ravensbourne which runs north from here to eventually make its confluence with the Thames at Deptford. I walked the lower part of the Ravensbourne from Catford Bridge to the Thames back in January2023
I had a brief paddle in the spring, sending some of the Kent that had stuck to my boots downstream towards that London. Then I followed the path around and between the upper and middle of Keston Ponds and past the lower pond into the woods north of Fishponds Road to reach Keston village centre. After passing the village green with its pubs, old public drinking fountain, and heavy traffic I bore north-west along wooded paths parallel to and for a short spell alongside the roads to reach West Wickham Common. I soon came to a London Loop signpost that said it was only 1 mile to Hayes Station. This was welcome but inaccurate, by my reckoning (and plotting on a map) if you’re following the waymarked route it’s at least one and a half miles.
West Wickham Common is managed by the City of London Corporation so their name appears on the signage. It also contains some impressive ancient earthworks although the information board suggests no one is entirely confident as to what purpose the served. Iron Age fort, part of a Medieval field system, artificial rabbit warren? All three perhaps.
I skirted around the earthworks, taking in the view to the south-west over towards New Addington, then headed down hill to the end of Section 3 at Gates Green Road, Coney Hall.
This is the end of section 3 - and the start of section 4 so at some point I should be back here - but not the end of the walk because from here there’s still the Loop Link to Hayes railway station to do. This heads uphill back along Croydon Road for a short distance before turning left into a fenced tarmac footpath which the guides describes as “leading up and down” but neglects to add “like a bloody roller-coaster”. Just what I needed after 9 miles. After passing some houses, a small sports ground, and along one last muddy track it goes down Station Hill. At the bottom of the hill I found a bench and made myself at least semi-presentable before going to the Real Ale Way opposite the station and rewarding myself with a pint of Larkins Pale. Which went down so well that I rewarded myself with a second one before heading to the station (via the chippy) to begin the train journey home.
London Loop Section 3 ✅
Flickr Album for London Loop Section 3
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