Knole to Shipbourne

Knole to Shipbourne along the Greensand Way

This was a very pretty walk on not such a pretty day. This was the first wet-walk day for many months but it stayed dry until lunchtime and guess what, we just had to shelter in a delightful little pub to escape the rain!

Parking up at the south side of Knole Park, the route took us through the park and out into the village of Godden Green. Nice pub here (the Bucks Head) but it was way to early to stop. From here the path climbed up onto the Greensand Ridge and we followed this through Seal Chart and then dropped down into Ivy Hatch where our lunch break awaited us in the guise of "The Plough". We have stopped here before and it's a delightful pub serving excellent local ales and hosting a good kitchen to match them. As previously mentioned, the rain started about 15 min before we reached this pub and this was the first outing for the waterproofs since early springtime.

It was still damp but the main belt of rain had passed when we exited the pub and set about the loop around Fairlawne and into Shipbourne village. We could have stopped at "The Chaser" pub in Shipbourne but had decided that The Plough was more to our taste!

Fairlawne House and park

What Ivan was doing underneath that cape we never knew!

Igtham Mote - an original 13th century house

Not the best day for views but still worth seeing.

We followed the Greensand Way path from Shipbourne right back to the car. The views across the weald from this path were great even though tempered a bit by the low cloud. This would be a great Spring walk and we will do it again next year when the Bluebells are out.

Stats for the day were ...

Date	Steps	Distance (mi)	Time (Hr)	Calories	Average speed (mph)	Elevation gain (feet)	Elevation lost (feet)
09/09/2013	21,092	10.6	4:03	1,192	2.7	2,067	2,073