12 July 2018
A full day walk from Orpington to Hayes stations in Kent via Downe village and Down House, home of Charles Darwin.
The original rationale of this walk was to repeat one undertaken on June 18th, 1892. On that occasion a co-leader was William Erasmus Darwin, the first son of the famous Charles. The Victorian walkers (over 120) were entertained to tea at Down House by Charles’s widow Emma Darwin. The route passed through countryside little changed for nearly a century and a half, since Charles Darwin had studied various aspects of the natural environment. Alas, an attempt a decade ago, by H.M. Government to have UNESCO bestow ‘Word Heritage’ status to ‘Darwin’s Landscape Laboratory’ was unsuccessful.
The party of 13, armed with ‘London Travelcards’ assembled at Orpington at 10.30. Most had taken the 08.46 train from Reading. As anticipated, the first 15 minutes of the walk was through suburbia but thereafter we were in open country, thanks to the protection given by the London Green Belt - parts of the route coincided with the London Ring walking route. The basic geology of the North Downs was outlined, this being similar to the Chilterns but in reverse as the escarpment lay to the south.
The first stop was to admire the Celtic Cross in the grounds of Farnborough church. This marked the grave of Sir John Lubbock (later Lord Avebury) a young protégé of Charles Darwin. In Downe village lunch (at either the tea shop or the pub) was followed by an inspection of several Darwin related graves in the churchyard, including that of Emma Darwin. A short walk led to the isolated Down House, which is a now an English Heritage property dedicated to a celebration of Charles’ work. Charles spent the last 40 years of his life at Down and this is where he wrote ‘The origin of species’. The house and gardens were found to be full of Darwin nostalgia. After making a circuit of the iconic Sandwalk (Charles’s thinking path), the party headed north along the flanks of a dry valley as far as Holwood Farm. There some took the option of returning to Hayes by the Downe bus, whilst the others climbed onto the Holwood plateau heathland, passed the famed Wilberforce oak, and then followed the valley of the minute Ravensbourne stream through birch dominated woodland. Close to Keston, the famed acid bog studied by Charles was viewed, with *Eriopherum *(Cotton grass) in bloom. Astonishingly this was within Greater London not the Pennines. The final element of the walk was across the mainly wooded Hayes Common.
From Hayes, the return route was to London Bridge, Jubilee and Bakerloo Lines to Paddington and finally Reading just over 12 hours since departure in the morning. Significantly the whole journey was by electric traction, which minimised the environmental impact of emissions.
Peter Worsley.
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