Bishopsbourne Circular Walk  | - Click on the image above to view gallery
|
|
 St Mary's Church
Starting our walk in the centre of Bishopsbourne we set off on the Elham Valley Way, which actually passed through the churchyard. I don’t think I’ve ever had to walk around a grave on a footpath before now. Once out of the graveyard we crossed a pasture and a bridge going over the River Nailbourne. We continued a bit further and were now walking through the parkland of Bourne House. The house was built in 1702 and is considered to be Kent’s finest Queen Anne building. When the Lake was excavated Roman pottery and coins were found and archaeologists think that this was the site of an important settlement.
The walk continued through typical countryside for this part of Kent, which included narrow lanes, agricultural fields, woodland paths and orchards. We also walked past something we hadn’t seen locally for quite some time: a hop field. This was once a common sight, but sadly these days something we hardly seem to see at all.
 New Stile  Little Pett Farm
At one point we found an old railway bridge from the long gone Elham Valley Railway. I always find seeing old railway bridges quite sad. Given that it was covered in graffiti and there was lots of rubbish around where people clearly gathered made it seem even more so.
One thing we did notice from this walk was the amount of hedgerow fruits and berries there are around this year. Everything seems to be having a very good year this year. I’m not sure what that means, maybe we will be in for another hard winter! Eventually the really dull weather that always makes taking pictures hard work started to clear. I suddenly looked up at the sky and noticed the tiniest patch of blue sky that was definitely not big enough to “make a sailor a pair of trousers”. It seemed quite remarkable then that out of the whole cloudy sky the sun shone from this tiny patch of blue sky for a brief moment. Soon after that the clouds did break up for a while and the temperature rose immediately too.
A little further along in our walk we stopped to have a drink and enjoyed lazing in the warm sunshine for a while. I discovered when looking at the map that the meadow we were sitting in was above Peaceful Retreat Farm, which seemed very suitable for what we were doing at the time. We still had a couple of miles to go by then, so as much as it was nice enjoying the warm sun it was time to get moving once more.
Following the footpaths through more woodland and open fields we spotted many Red-legged Partridge in breeding pens as well as lots of Brown Hare. One of the hares allowed me to get really rather close as he played a game of “now you see me, now you don’t” as he flattened himself to the ground. I’m so glad he didn’t run off like all the others did when we got close, they are lovely creatures.
 A Hare playing Now you see me  Now you don't
Soon we were back in Bishopsbourne where we had started the walk and we felt really pleased that we had made the effort to get out for a walk after all the indecision of earlier in the day. Our AA “50 Walks in Kent” book tells me it was 6 miles and 528ft of ascent and well worth it for all the different things we saw on the way.
 |
and places to visit in Kent. Maggie