Day 10 Chegworth to Boughton Lees

Statistics: 16 miles, ascent 1291 feet, descent 1151 feet.

With a 16-mile trail segment ahead of us and predictions of a warm day, we decided to get an early start, hitting the trail at 7:00 a.m. Leaving at that early hour before the B&B served breakfast, we missed a goodbye to our host of the previous evening. An interesting side-note about that B&B, which had been remodeled from an old mill: the mill’s waterworks were carefully preserved in the center area of the B&B.

We had deviated about 3 miles from of the NDW to get to last night’s B&B. Before returning to the trail, we worked our way on to Harrietsham to resupply our lunch stock before getting back to the NDW. Our route today would join the Pilgrim’s Way and we did, in fact, see modern-day pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. Once back on the trail, we could see Harrietsham behind us.

Much of the day was spent walking along fields of barley and wheat on farm tracks.

The poppies and the wheat were a stunning combination!

The rolling path beckoned us on.

The well-manicured fields made for a beautiful landscape.

As we approached Eastwell Park and Boughton Lees, the path took a very direct course across the fields.

Entering Boughton Lees, we met a fellow NDW walker, 80 years old, hiking the NDW by herself as she had previously hiked all over the UK and Europe. An inspiration to hikers!

Oasthouses were a common sight in Kent. Initially, these contained brick kilns for drying hops during the beer brewing process. Many no longer operate as kilns and have been converted to homes or allowed to deteriorate. We found this example on the way out of town.

At Boughton Lees the NDW trail split, with one path continuing through Canterbury and the other detouring to pass nearer the southern coast. These paths finally came back together in Dover, the eastern end of the North Downs Way. During our early planning, we had decided to take the Canterbury route, reserving that night at a B&B along that route, so we followed that path. Although the Warren Farm Barn was about 3/4 mile off of the Canterbury trail, it was easily seen long before we arrived.

Our hosts for the night, Di and Chris, greeted us while urging us to come in, shed our packs and join them in their garden for a cool drink and a snack. Very enjoyable! Chris had taken several years to convert an old barn into this lovely home and B&B.