On Foot to Canterbury: A Son's Pilgrimage by Ken Haigh

Author:Ken Haigh [Ken Haigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Travel, Europe, Great Britain, Special Interest, Hikes & Walks
ISBN: 9781772125450
Google: -YFGEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Alberta
Published: 2021-09-16T23:32:04.154188+00:00

9

Godstone to Otford

Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

—JEREMIAH 6:16

DESPITE MY FINANCIAL WORRIES, I sleep well. Buried deep beneath my eiderdown with the cool country air nipping my nose, it is the most peaceful night so far. After breakfast (fortunately included in my pre-booked accommodation), I slog back up the hill to the North Downs Way—hundreds and hundreds of carved steps—and am back on the main trail by nine o’clock. The first stretch is depressing, lots of garbage strewn throughout the forest—plastic bottles, trash bags, a mattress, some blankets, and a torn and faded nylon tent. It looks as if someone had been living rough in the woods at one time and had just walked away from their gear. I cross a busy road and drop into a deep wooded dell. The sun moves behind some clouds, and suddenly I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature. Crows call direly from the trees overhead, seeming to mock my slow progress through the twisting muddy trail. Once I am past this section and climbing the hill again, I immediately feel better and tell myself that this sense of dread is all in my imagination. (Though later, when I consult the map, I discover that this feature is called the Devil’s Hole).

As I continue my climb through Marden Woods (donated to a grateful nation by the conductor Sir Adrian Boult), the sun comes out once more. I spy a fox and dozens of rabbits. As the woods open up onto bare chalk slopes, hundreds of large yellow butterflies surround me, landing on my hat and shoulders. Perhaps they are attracted to my bright red T-shirt. At one point I see a railway line disappear into the hill beneath my feet, as I cross over a tunnel that cuts right through the Downs. Stretches of the old Pilgrims’ Way follow, and then once more I am climbing the Downs. My map tells me this is the Titsey Estate and I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Titsey Manor, but the woods are too dense. Up and up I slog, endlessly it seems, finally emerging at a car park at the top of the hill only to discover from a large visitor map that any of the cross paths labelled “Titsey Estate” I stepped over on my way to the top would probably have taken me to Titsey Manor. Oh well, too late. Also, at 853 feet, this is the highest hill I will have to climb on my journey.

Leaving Titsey Estate, I follow the aptly named Chestnut Avenue, quite a long stretch of road, walking past large gated suburban villas. One of the houses, called Mole End, has silhouettes of Mole and Ratty from The Wind in the Willows painted on the wall, while next door an old-fashioned gas-powered lamppost is fixed at the end of the drive, like the one found in Narnia.

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