Haxted

The Tarn

Well Hall · 17 miles

A wooded lakeside site on the eastern side of Court Road, opposite Mottingham railway station, offers a mixture of open garden, water and protected wildlife. Covering nine acres in the Royal Borough of Greenwich (postcode SE9 5AQ), the area was once the southern part of the Great Park attached to Eltham Palace, used for royal deer hunting until the English Civil War. After the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich bought the land from the neighbouring Royal Blackheath Golf Club, the public garden opened in 1935 and has remained largely as laid out in the 1930s. The central part of the site surrounds a two-acre lake, historically called Starbuck’s Pond, and provides a circular walk that follows the shoreline, crosses a wooden footbridge and links the two gated entrances. Along the route visitors find a range of benches, a gazebo, a public-toilet block with a veranda shelter and an 18th-century brick ice well that is Grade II listed and viewable through a fenced opening. The park is wheelchair-accessible on most routes, although a few steps remain near the north-west and south-west entrances. Dogs are not permitted to protect the resident birds. Half of the nine-acre area is fenced off as a bird-sanctuary nature reserve, where species such as mallard, Canada goose, rose-ringed parakeet and swan are regularly observed, alongside foxes, squirrels, frogs and bats. The lake supports a small stickleback population and is fed by the Little Quaggy stream. Access is via Court Road; the nearest town is Well Hall, and entry is free.

Starborough Castle

Haxted · 2.5 miles

Built on the site of the first castle.

Central astroturph

Sundridge · 6.2 miles

Used to be cobbled, but then the school put astroturph over it

Priory Wood

Tonbridge · 7.5 miles

Small open grassland featuring a small pond and areas of woodland.

Edward Hoare Memorial

Royal Wells Park · 8.1 miles

A large, decorated pillar with statues of the four evangelists, a bust of Canon Hoare and a plaque.

Airman's Grave

Duddleswell · 11 miles

Stone cross in a stone-walled enclosure to commemorate the crew of a Wellington bomber that crashed in the forest on 31 July 1941