Here is a circular journey of the apparently modest total of thirty-three miles. If, however, we consider that a portion of it is hilly, and that the whole abounds with places to be seen, why, then, this is by no means a short route. Any portion of this irregularly shaped circle is within easy access of a railway station—Westerham, Edenbridge, Hever, Penshurst, Tonbridge of course—Hildenborough, Sevenoaks, and Brasted—all having stations of their own. It matters little from which point you begin the round. Let us, however, say Westerham, to which access is obtained on the railway by the branch line from Dunton Green. Westerham is a terminus, a large village or small town lying beneath the shadow of the immemorial hills, along whose steep sides, marked by a line of occasional ancient yews, goes the old Pilgrims’ Way between Winchester and Canterbury. The great historic figure connected with Westerham is General Wolfe, the victor of Quebec. There is a cenotaph to him in the parish church, and another in Squerryes Park, just outside the village. The vicarage, too, was his birthplace.

Westerham has nothing in common with modernity. It seems to have had a great era of building in the time of Queen Anne and of the early Georges, and to have exhausted itself in the effort; which is equal to saying that Westerham is delightfully old-world, with great red brick mansions and old gardens, and elbow-room everywhere. Here is the picturesque beginning of the river Darenth, crossing the road on its way down to Darenth and Dartford, to turn many mills, and to finally lose itself in the defiled waters of the lower Thames. The road descends from Westerham to Edenbridge, passing on the way the fork of the road where a guide-post directs by a short route to Chiddingstone, Hever, and Penshurst, vi Fair Elms. We will not turn here, but continue straight on to Crockham Hill, past the wild beauty of Crockham Hill Common, coming to the modern hamlet and church, set amid wide-spreading hop gardens. Two miles onward from this point we pass Edenbridge Station, and in another half-mile Edenbridge “Town” Station, and finally, in nearly another mile, come to Edenbridge itself, by no means a place of that metropolitan character the traveller would expect to find after all this heralding of railways.

Edenbridge is old-world and pretty, as surely it should be with such a name. It savours of Arcadian delights; and, indeed, when you have left Edenbridge Station behind you are come to a village that has little commerce with the outer world. True, folks hereabouts call Edenbridge “the town”; but there are towns and towns, and this is no centre of activity. The station is half a mile away, the railway conveniently out of sight of the village street, and life here flows as gently, and with as even a current, as that of the little river Eden, that gives the place its idyllic name.

Edenbridge—as surely is fitting—is set round about with apple-orchards, which render it as fragrant in spring as its neighbouring hop gardens do in the late summer months. The first thing, however, that attracts the Londoner’s attention is the quaintness of the one village street, with its tile-hung cottages and the sign of that comfortable old hostelry, the “Crown” Hotel, spanning the width of the road. Edenbridge also contains within its bounds quite a notable clock, of which the inhabitants are justly proud. No stranger can explore the recesses of the old church on the hillside without being presently buttonholed by a villager, who will take him round to where this timepiece shows its black face on the sturdy tower, and will point out to him the singular fact that all the V’s among the gilded numerals are turned the wrong way. But this is not all. The clock—like the heroine of the modern novel—has a “past.” It was made in 1738, and was the clock of St. George’s, Southwark, until 1808, when, on the old church being pulled down, it was sold to the vicar and churchwardens of Edenbridge. It should be a testimony to the health-giving properties of the Kentish air when it is said that since it came down from London it has never known a day’s illness, save only those slight ailments incidental to old age, that can be rectified by the application of a little oil.

When the cyclist has taken his survey of Edenbridge, his next place of pilgrimage should be Hever.

Though only three miles from Edenbridge, and but twenty-seven from Victoria, Hever is not so well known to the excursionist as it should be, when one considers how eminently beautiful and historical is its castle. Here, then, is the way to it. Coming to the bridge across the river Eden, we cross, and look out for a turning on the left hand by a boarded cottage. This leads across a railway and then along a pretty winding lane, bringing one easefully to the spot in two miles. The little Eden wanders erratically through the level lands, and all is quiet and rustic.

Look out for Hever, lest you miss it, for beside its grey old church, with the shingled spire, there is little else. Just a farm, a cottage or so, and an inn—the “Henry the Eighth,” formerly the “Bull and Butcher,” or, as legends would have it, the “Boleyn Butchered.” For this was the Kentish home of the beautiful and unfortunate Anne. They still tell you how Henry, ardent lover, used to come riding through the lanes to see his “dearest pet,” the fair chatelaine of Hever Castle, down yonder, amid the oozy water-meadows, and how, bogged in those miry ways, the rustics would pull the Defender of the Faith out of the sloughs. Here, too, in Hever Church may still be seen the altar-tomb and the magnificent brass of Sir Thomas Boleyn, my Lord of Wiltshire and Ormonde, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the ennobled and decorated father of that charmer. Another exquisite brass is that in the chancel to Margaret Cheyne, 1419.

Downhill from Hever Church, surrounded still by its ancient moat, is the unspoiled castle, a small but perfect example of the fortified manor-house of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The greater part of the present building was erected in the later years of Henry the Sixth, and was added to in Elizabeth’s time. The Boleyns first became connected with it about 1460, when Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, mercer and Lord Mayor of London, purchased the ruined place and commenced to build anew; but before he could complete this reconstruction he was gathered to his fathers, and it remained for his son Sir Thomas—father of the ill-fated Anne—to complete the work Sir Geoffrey had begun.

It is a private residence, and the interior is very charily shown to strangers—on Wednesdays only. The exterior and the moat, however, are always readily accessible, and are very well worth seeing. The lichened castle walls, with their time-stained masonry and vivid patches of red brick, are extraordinarily picturesque, and the windows, occurring at irregular intervals, with the clustered chimneys and mantling ivy, give the place a romantic quaintness all its own. To complete the picture, apple-orchards face two sides of the moat.

The lanes wind greatly, but are merely undulating, on the route to Chiddingstone, two and a half miles distant. Chiddingstone is generally found to be a dream of beauty by enthusiastic visitors; and the visitor to this lovely hamlet cannot help being enthusiastic.

No less beautiful than Hever, but with a beauty of quite a different character, it stands in a hollow at the gates of Chiddingstone Park, whose magnificent elms and chestnuts overhang in summer a row of old timbered houses, sketched many hundreds of times on paper or canvas by enthusiastic artists. The quaint house next the park gates, in the accompanying sketch, is the ideally placed “Castle Inn,” that might, both as regards its situation and its cosy, old-fashioned interior, have inspired a Washington Irving to transports of eloquence. Everyone who has been to the Royal Academy any year knows Chiddingstone, although he may never have visited it; for artists are continually painting this loveliest of Kentish villages, as it is called, and its embowering trees and quaint timbered houses. Behind these houses, in a field, is the “chiding stone,” a large boulder of red sandstone, outcropped from the underlying geological formation, and said to have been a Druidical seat of judgment or place of exhortation.

The roads grow lonely and degenerate (this expression purely from the cyclist’s point of view), into wooded lanes and tracts between Chiddingstone and Penshurst. If, however, you have that which many cyclists have not—that is to say, a real love of natural woodland and copse, where the hazels grow and the bracken and undergrowth are dense—then the walk of two miles by footpaths through the coppices will be not the least enjoyable part of this trip. This brings one to the scattered and very beautiful old village of Penshurst surrounding the ancient baronial home of the Sidneys, Penshurst Place. On three days in the week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays—the house is shown at an admission fee of one shilling. It is said that these fees amount in the year to over £300, which gives the annual number of visitors at more than six thousand. The Barons’ Hall is the chief point of interest, and is the oldest part of the historic building, dating back to the fourteenth century.

Most famous of all the warlike and polite Sidneys who owned Penshurst was Sir Philip Sidney, who fell at the siege of Zutphen, and is the hero of that chivalric action, the giving up, when wounded to death, the cup of water for which he thirsted, so that a wounded soldier might quench his thirst. “He has more need of it than I,” said this chivalric soul.

Among the historic pictures here is the remarkable portrait of Algernon Sidney, executed in 1683 on Tower Hill. He met death in characteristic Sidney fashion:—

“Are you ready, sir?” asked the headsman, when he had laid his head on the block; “will you rise again?”

“Not till the general resurrection. Strike on;” and his head was severed from his body.

In the background of the portrait you see the Tower of London and the headsman’s block and axe.

But to complete the round; on good roads, again from Penshurst to Pounds Bridge, through secluded country, and thence to Speldhurst. At Pounds Bridge there is a quite astonishingly quaint and old-world inn, gabled and timbered, and with a sixteenth-century device and monogram on it. From Speldhurst we go through more forest country, and then turn left for Southborough, where we are within hail of Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells and the great settlements of modern country residences created by the healthy air and fine scenery. Coming down Quarry Hill into the town, the tourist finds Tonbridge more interesting than “the Wells,” because it is quainter and not so fashionable. There are some impressive remains of Tonbridge Castle yet to be seen in the grounds of a park near the end of the High Street, and in that street is the old “Chequers,” a house that no artist nor any amateur photographer can resist.

Crossing the Medway, there now comes a long five and a half miles to Sevenoaks, with only one village; a very little village with the very long name of Hildenborough. Thence it is a climb up the very steep River Hill to Knole Park, bordering the right hand of the road into Sevenoaks. Park and house, the property of Lord Sackville, are open to the public; the park always, the house on Thursday and Saturday afternoons, from 2 to 5 o’clock; on Fridays and Bank Holidays 10 to 5. Single visitors, 2s.; parties of four, 6s.; of seven, 10s. There are Reynolds and Gainsborough pictures among the great art collections, and there are as many rooms in the house as there are days in the year; but only seventeen of them are shown.

From the town to Sevenoaks there is a very long and steep run down to the station and to Riverhead. The station is convenient for a return to town, but if it is desired to complete the circle, there are the interesting villages of Sundridge and Brasted to see, on the excellent road to Westerham, with the long array of the North Downs continually in sight.