Winter Walks: Horton Kirby to Farningham.

Winter Walks 4: Total distance 5.8 miles (9.3km) from my home in South Darenth to Farningham and back. These walks are what I call lockdown walks, I walk to the start point of the next walk before I start filming, using the journey back as an opportunity to take some photographs. Walking from Horton Kirby to Farningham in Kent via the Darent Valley Path on a very cold but sunny winter morning. My apologies for the wind noise in the closing scenes, I lost my microphone windsock on the return journey, it was last seen floating downstream at high speed heading towards the River Thames 

Corrections, or as I call them, senior moments 

• Franks Bridge is Franks Lane Bridge. 
• I stated in the video that the Darent Valley Path ends in Westerham, it ends at Greensand Hills, Sevenoaks.

Horton Kirby

Horton Kirby is a village in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.9 miles east of Swanley & 4.9 miles south of Dartford. Together with the nearby village of South Darenth, it forms the Horton Kirby and South Darenth civil parish Remains of a Roman villa were discovered in 1972 on the Westminster Field recreation ground, just across the Darent from the village. The discovery was made when new main sewage drains were being dug. The extra costs of diverting these to save the villa were met by public subscription, with fund-raising help from local schoolchildren. The remains include those of a Roman granary at least 100 ft in length and 60 ft wide. The site was back-filled after preservation work was completed. 

Farningham

Farningham is believed to be home to Neolithic history – flint and other tools have been discovered and can be found in the Dartford Museum. The Romans occupied the general area after their invasion in the 1st century AD and, along with large evidence of habitation down the road in Lullingstone, there is also evidence of Roman habitation in Farningham. Three farmhouses and three villas have been unearthed. Charles Dickens was a visitor during his time for the trout fishing that the River Darent provided.

Darent Valley Path

The waymarked Darent Valley Path is 19 miles (31 km) long, following the River Darent from the banks of the River Thames at Dartford through the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the Greensand Hills above Sevenoaks. It runs through the villages of Shoreham and Otford.

River Darent

The Darent is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames and takes the waters of the River Cray as a tributary in the tidal portion of the Darent near Crayford.  'Darenth' is frequently found in the spelling of the river's name in older books and maps, Bartholomew's "Canal's and River of England" being one example. Bartholomew's Gazetteer (1954) demonstrates that Darent means "clear water" and separately explains the other name. Considering the River Darent runs on a bed of chalk and its springs rise through chalk, this is not surprising. The original purity of the water was a major reason for the development of paper and pharmaceuticals in the area.

Darenth Parish (through which the river flows) derives from a Celtic phrase “stream where oak-trees grow”.

Fed by springs from the greensand hills south of Westerham in Kent and below Limpsfield Chart in Surrey it flows 21 miles (34 km) east then north by Otford and Shoreham, past the castle and the ruined Roman villa at Lullingstone, then by Eynsford, Farningham, Horton Kirby, South Darenth, Sutton-at-Hone, Darenth, and eventually to Dartford whence it proceeds a final two miles as a tidal estuary until it drops into the Thames "Long Reach.

CC Attributions

Artist: Juan Sánchez.

Track: Now The Silence.

Website: https://juansanchezmusic.info/home