Читать книгу The North Downs Way. National Trail from Farnham to Dover онлайн

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Walking west to east

As the quotation from Belloc suggests, the route could be tackled from Dover round to Farnham, but the journey described in this guide takes the opposite view, preferring instead to walk eastwards, as would the pilgrim. So for the sake of our modern-day pilgrim the National Trail, which was officially opened in September 1978, begins in Farnham and ends in Dover.

At Boughton Lees near Wye the route forks; one stem heading north to Canterbury, while the main and more direct route continues through Wye and follows the escarpment to the outskirts of Folkestone, then on to Dover by way of a breezy path over Shakespeare Cliff. The direct route to Dover measures roughly 123 miles (198km), while the alternative that takes the Canterbury loop is about 130 miles (208km) long, and for most of its course between Farnham and Canterbury, it either coincides with, or parallels, the older Pilgrims’ Way.

For the first 14 miles (22km) out of Farnham the route plots a course along a range of sandy hills to the south of the Downs, but after crossing the lovely viewpoint of St Martha's Hill east of Guildford, it strikes north to the chalk crest of Albury Downs at Newlands Corner. From then on the North Downs Way remains true to its name and mainly keeps close to the southern escarpment on a series of footpaths, tracks and brief stretches of quiet country lane as the North Downs spread east and southeast across Surrey and Kent before being stopped abruptly by the English Channel.