Here is a circular journey of the apparently modest total of
thirty-three miles. If, however, we consider that a portion of it is
hilly, and that the whole abounds with places to be seen, why, then,
this is by no means a short route. Any portion of this irregularly
shaped circle is within easy access of a railway station—Westerham,
Edenbridge, Hever, Penshurst, Tonbridge of course—Hildenborough,
Sevenoaks, and Brasted—all having stations of their own. It matters
little from which point you begin the round. Let us, however, say
Westerham, to which access is obtained on the railway by the branch
line from Dunton Green. Westerham is a terminus, a large village or
small town lying beneath the shadow of the immemorial hills, along
whose steep sides, marked by a line of occasional ancient yews, goes
the old Pilgrims’ Way between Winchester and Canterbury. The great
historic figure connected with Westerham is General Wolfe, the victor
of Quebec. There is a cenotaph to him in the parish church, and another
in Squerryes Park, just outside the village. The vicarage, too, was his
birthplace.
[Illustration: Map—WESTERHAM to TONBRIDGE]
Westerham has nothing in common with modernity. It seems to have had
a great era of building in the time of Queen Anne and of the early
Georges, and to have exhausted itself in the effort; which is equal
to saying that Westerham is delightfully old-world, with great red
brick mansions and old gardens, and elbow-room everywhere. Here is
the picturesque beginning of the river Darenth, crossing the road
on its way down to Darenth and Dartford, to turn many mills, and to
finally lose itself in the defiled waters of the lower Thames. The road
descends from Westerham to Edenbridge, passing on the way the fork of
the road where a guide-post directs by a short route to Chiddingstone,
Hever, and Penshurst, _viâ_ Fair Elms. We will not turn here, but
continue straight on to Crockham Hill, past the wild beauty of
Crockham Hill Common, coming to the modern hamlet and church, set amid
wide-spreading hop gardens. Two miles onward from this point we pass
Edenbridge Station, and in another half-mile Edenbridge “Town” Station,
and finally, in nearly another mile, come to Edenbridge itself, by no
means a place of that metropolitan character the traveller would expect
to find after all this heralding of railways.
Edenbridge is old-world and pretty, as surely it should be with such a
name. It savours of Arcadian delights; and, indeed, when you have left
Edenbridge Station behind you are come to a village that has little
commerce with the outer world. True, folks hereabouts call Edenbridge
“the town”; but there are towns and towns, and this is no centre of
activity. The station is half a mile away, the railway conveniently out
of sight of the village street, and life here flows as gently, and with
as even a current, as that of the little river Eden, that gives the
place its idyllic name.
Edenbridge—as surely is fitting—is set round about with apple-orchards,
which render it as fragrant in spring as its neighbouring hop gardens
do in the late summer months. The first thing, however, that attracts
the Londoner’s attention is the quaintness of the one village street,
with its tile-hung cottages and the sign of that comfortable old
hostelry, the “Crown” Hotel, spanning the width of the road. Edenbridge
also contains within its bounds quite a notable clock, of which the
inhabitants are justly proud. No stranger can explore the recesses of
the old church on the hillside without being presently buttonholed by
a villager, who will take him round to where this timepiece shows its
black face on the sturdy tower, and will point out to him the singular
fact that all the V’s among the gilded numerals are turned the wrong
way. But this is not all. The clock—like the heroine of the modern
novel—has a “past.” It was made in 1738, and was the clock of St.
George’s, Southwark, until 1808, when, on the old church being pulled
down, it was sold to the vicar and churchwardens of Edenbridge. It
should be a testimony to the health-giving properties of the Kentish
air when it is said that since it came down from London it has never
known a day’s illness, save only those slight ailments incidental to
old age, that can be rectified by the application of a little oil.
When the cyclist has taken his survey of Edenbridge, his next place of
pilgrimage should be Hever.
Though only three miles from Edenbridge, and but twenty-seven from
Victoria, Hever is not so well known to the excursionist as it should
be, when one considers how eminently beautiful and historical is its
castle. Here, then, is the way to it. Coming to the bridge across the
river Eden, we cross, and look out for a turning on the left hand by a
boarded cottage. This leads across a railway and then along a pretty
winding lane, bringing one easefully to the spot in two miles. The
little Eden wanders erratically through the level lands, and all is
quiet and rustic.
[Illustration: _The Gatehouse, Hever Castle._]
Look out for Hever, lest you miss it, for beside its grey old church,
with the shingled spire, there is little else. Just a farm, a cottage
or so, and an inn—the “Henry the Eighth,” formerly the “Bull and
Butcher,” or, as legends would have it, the “Boleyn Butchered.” For
this was the Kentish home of the beautiful and unfortunate Anne. They
still tell you how Henry, ardent lover, used to come riding through the
lanes to see his “dearest pet,” the fair chatelaine of Hever Castle,
down yonder, amid the oozy water-meadows, and how, bogged in those
miry ways, the rustics would pull the Defender of the Faith out of the
sloughs. Here, too, in Hever Church may still be seen the altar-tomb
and the magnificent brass of Sir Thomas Boleyn, my Lord of Wiltshire
and Ormonde, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the
ennobled and decorated father of that charmer. Another exquisite brass
is that in the chancel to Margaret Cheyne, 1419.
[Illustration: HEVER CASTLE.]
Downhill from Hever Church, surrounded still by its ancient moat, is
the unspoiled castle, a small but perfect example of the fortified
manor-house of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
The greater part of the present building was erected in the later
years of Henry the Sixth, and was added to in Elizabeth’s time. The
Boleyns first became connected with it about 1460, when Sir Geoffrey
Boleyn, mercer and Lord Mayor of London, purchased the ruined place
and commenced to build anew; but before he could complete this
reconstruction he was gathered to his fathers, and it remained for his
son Sir Thomas—father of the ill-fated Anne—to complete the work Sir
Geoffrey had begun.
It is a private residence, and the interior is very charily shown to
strangers—on Wednesdays only. The exterior and the moat, however, are
always readily accessible, and are very well worth seeing. The lichened
castle walls, with their time-stained masonry and vivid patches of red
brick, are extraordinarily picturesque, and the windows, occurring at
irregular intervals, with the clustered chimneys and mantling ivy, give
the place a romantic quaintness all its own. To complete the picture,
apple-orchards face two sides of the moat.
The lanes wind greatly, but are merely undulating, on the route to
Chiddingstone, two and a half miles distant. Chiddingstone is generally
found to be a dream of beauty by enthusiastic visitors; and the
visitor to this lovely hamlet cannot help being enthusiastic.
No less beautiful than Hever, but with a beauty of quite a different
character, it stands in a hollow at the gates of Chiddingstone Park,
whose magnificent elms and chestnuts overhang in summer a row of old
timbered houses, sketched many hundreds of times on paper or canvas
by enthusiastic artists. The quaint house next the park gates, in the
accompanying sketch, is the ideally placed “Castle Inn,” that might,
both as regards its situation and its cosy, old-fashioned interior,
have inspired a Washington Irving to transports of eloquence. Everyone
who has been to the Royal Academy any year knows Chiddingstone,
although he may never have visited it; for artists are continually
painting this loveliest of Kentish villages, as it is called, and its
embowering trees and quaint timbered houses. Behind these houses, in
a field, is the “chiding stone,” a large boulder of red sandstone,
outcropped from the underlying geological formation, and said to have
been a Druidical seat of judgment or place of exhortation.
The roads grow lonely and degenerate (this expression purely from
the cyclist’s point of view), into wooded lanes and tracts between
Chiddingstone and Penshurst. If, however, you have that which many
cyclists have not—that is to say, a real love of natural woodland
and copse, where the hazels grow and the bracken and undergrowth are
dense—then the walk of two miles by footpaths through the coppices
will be not the least enjoyable part of this trip. This brings one to
the scattered and very beautiful old village of Penshurst surrounding
the ancient baronial home of the Sidneys, Penshurst Place. On three
days in the week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays—the house is shown
at an admission fee of one shilling. It is said that these fees amount
in the year to over £300, which gives the annual number of visitors
at more than six thousand. The Barons’ Hall is the chief point of
interest, and is the oldest part of the historic building, dating back
to the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: CHIDDINGSTONE.]
Most famous of all the warlike and polite Sidneys who owned Penshurst
was Sir Philip Sidney, who fell at the siege of Zutphen, and is the
hero of that chivalric action, the giving up, when wounded to death,
the cup of water for which he thirsted, so that a wounded soldier might
quench his thirst. “He has more need of it than I,” said this chivalric
soul.
[Illustration: SUNSET ON THE EDEN.]
Among the historic pictures here is the remarkable portrait of Algernon
Sidney, executed in 1683 on Tower Hill. He met death in characteristic
Sidney fashion:—
“Are you ready, sir?” asked the headsman, when he had laid his head on
the block; “will you rise again?”
“Not till the general resurrection. Strike on;” and his head was
severed from his body.
In the background of the portrait you see the Tower of London and the
headsman’s block and axe.
[Illustration: A CREST OF THE SIDNEYS.]
But to complete the round; on good roads, again from Penshurst to
Pounds Bridge, through secluded country, and thence to Speldhurst. At
Pounds Bridge there is a quite astonishingly quaint and old-world inn,
gabled and timbered, and with a sixteenth-century device and monogram
on it. From Speldhurst we go through more forest country, and then
turn left for Southborough, where we are within hail of Tonbridge and
Tunbridge Wells and the great settlements of modern country residences
created by the healthy air and fine scenery. Coming down Quarry Hill
into the town, the tourist finds Tonbridge more interesting than “the
Wells,” because it is quainter and not so fashionable. There are some
impressive remains of Tonbridge Castle yet to be seen in the grounds
of a park near the end of the High Street, and in that street is the
old “Chequers,” a house that no artist nor any amateur photographer can
resist.
Crossing the Medway, there now comes a long five and a half miles to
Sevenoaks, with only one village; a very little village with the very
long name of Hildenborough. Thence it is a climb up the very steep
River Hill to Knole Park, bordering the right hand of the road into
Sevenoaks. Park and house, the property of Lord Sackville, are open
to the public; the park always, the house on Thursday and Saturday
afternoons, from 2 to 5 o’clock; on Fridays and Bank Holidays 10 to 5.
Single visitors, 2s.; parties of four, 6s.; of seven, 10s. There are
Reynolds and Gainsborough pictures among the great art collections, and
there are as many rooms in the house as there are days in the year; but
only seventeen of them are shown.
[Illustration: SHOEING FORGE, PENSHURST.]
From the town to Sevenoaks there is a very long and steep run down to
the station and to Riverhead. The station is convenient for a return
to town, but if it is desired to complete the circle, there are the
interesting villages of Sundridge and Brasted to see, on the excellent
road to Westerham, with the long array of the North Downs continually
in sight.