SE500 Challenge: The Mount and Kent’s Blossoms

Fancy a challenging walk whilst experiencing some of England’s most beautiful landscapes, history and natural beauty? Then this is for you!

Kent is known as the garden of England. This walk is timed to see the beautiful orchards and blossoms of Kent as the flowers come out. The walk follows public footpaths up and down through hills and vales, across orchards and woods, taking in the very best of the Kent countryside. The ups and downs add up to 500m ascent, but there are no very steep slopes on this walk. We will take a moderate pace, but we will not rush. The walk is a mixture of rolling countryside, challenge, and sheer beauty!

First, we follow paths by Selling church, with its medieval stained-glass windows, set on a hilltop above the orchards. From there, we second Hobgens Hill on grassy tracks and through woodland to the edge of Lees Court before turning to Perrywood Hills. On top is the Mount, the highest point in the area at 150m, with a wooden stockage viewpoint amongst the trees on the top. This is also known as the Pulpit, and has good views across Kent. We will find a suitable place to stop for lunch here. Please bring a packed lunch.

In the afternoon, we head through woods and over vales, then pick up Mountain Street, an ancient road and hamlet with fifteenth-century houses. This borders Chilham Castle estate with its ancient oak trees, and has great views of the River Stour and Julieberry Downs. We’ll then enter historic Chilham, with its timber frame houses and Castle. There is a toilet block, pub and tearoom, which we may make use of for a short afternoon break. The Castle is a Jacobean manor house, built in striking hexagonal shape by Sir Dudley Digges, a friend of William Shakespeare.

The best of the orchards are on the hillsides above Chilham on our afternoon route. We pass Martens Oast, a renovated oast house. Oast houses are distinctive historic buildings with pointed white tops. They are kilns to dry hops for the brewing process. We then return to Selling station through more orchards.

You are very welcome to attend this event whether a long-time member or new to OutdoorLads. 

Well behaved dogs are welcome. Be aware that it's possible one or two fields might have livestock in them. 

What is SE500?

SE500 is a proposed series of challenging hill walks in the South East. They include 500 metres of ascent and a distance of around 20km (12.5 miles). Sometimes paths may be steep; other walks may include ups and downs. That’s more than the average lowland and hill walk, and great practice for a mountain! An average man can expect to burn 2000 calories on one of these walks. Why not build up your fitness and gain a sense of achievement? Along the way, see some of the South East’s most beautiful countryside, dramatic hills and natural panoramas along the way. Look out for more of these walks around the South East over the coming months! 

Image Credits

Chilham, Kent, Photo © nicksarebi(cc-by-sa/2.0); Stone Stile Oasthouse, Kent, Photo © Oast House Archive (cc-by-sa/2.0); Cherry Orchards at Bentinck Farm © Mark Lindsay-Bayley(cc-by-sa/2.0); Chilham Castle  In Memoriam: Mark Kilner (cc-by-sa/2.0); Perrywood Pulpit David Neale  (cc-by-sa/2.0); These images are copyrighted but are here credited to their copyright holders and are licensed for reuse under either Creative Commons CC-BY-SA/2.0. Other images are by FrankieB and are copyright free and maybe reused for Outdoorlads.

IMPORTANT! - Participation Statement

You MUST complete a Participation Statement, in addition to booking your event space before attending an OutdoorLads event. You only need to complete this Participation Statement once, not for each event you attend.