London · Kent Downs and White Cliffs

A 293 km loop from Westerham lanes

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Why this ride

Shorter miles, sharp views and coastal punctuation. Out of Westerham and back again: 293 km, roughly 5 h 03 in the saddle. On the way it passes Canterbury, Dover White Cliffs, Folkestone coast and Royal Tunbridge Wells. The coast is the point of it.

Roadbook

1. Westerham lanes scenic

   Westerham is a small Kent town of about three thousand people, tucked into the Darent valley under the escarpment of the North Downs, and it has a bigger history than its size suggests. General James Wolfe, who captured Quebec in 1759, was born here, and his statue stands on the green opposite a statue of Winston Churchill, who lived at Chartwell, a few kilometres to the south. Squerryes Court, a seventeenth-century manor house with gardens, stands on the edge of town and has been home to the same family for centuries.

   Chartwell, a short ride away, is where Churchill lived from 1924 until his death, and the house, garden and studio, with its easel and brushes, are kept much as he left them. It is a National Trust property with a good café, and the view over the Weald from the terrace explains why he chose it. Biggin Hill, up on the Downs to the north, was one of the key fighter airfields in the Battle of Britain, and its history is commemorated with a chapel and a museum.

   The lanes around Westerham are among the best in the Home Counties. The road climbs the escarpment in a series of bends through beech woods, with views south across the Weald, and the lanes beyond wind through farmland and small villages. The A25 runs through the town and carries much of the traffic, so the minor roads are quieter, and they are best on a weekday morning when the cyclists and weekend drivers have not yet arrived. The surface can be rough in places, with potholes and mud.

   Fuel is available in Oxted, five kilometres away, with over thirteen thousand people, and at a few stations on the main road. Sundridge, a village nearby, has a church and a pub, and Westerham itself has several cafés and a good bakery. It is a fine place to finish a ride, with the light sinking behind the Downs, the old pubs glowing and the smell of woodsmoke on the evening air.

2. Canterbury food food

   Canterbury asks for a pause even from people in a hurry. The cathedral towers over the roofs, the little River Stour slips under footbridges and old timber houses lean over the lanes, and the whole centre is wrapped in a medieval wall that still survives in long stretches. It was already a Roman town, and in 597 Augustine arrived from Rome to begin the English church here, so this is, in a sense, where English Christianity starts.

   The story most visitors know is the murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop killed in the cathedral in 1170 by knights of Henry II. His shrine made Canterbury the great pilgrimage destination of medieval England, and the road from London became so busy that Geoffrey Chaucer used a party of pilgrims on it as the frame for his Canterbury Tales. As a rider coming down from London, you are following a very old route, and it is a nice thought for the last few miles.

   As a food stop, the city is easy and varied. The centre is compact and mostly pedestrianised, with cafés, pubs and bakeries in the lanes around the cathedral, and cheaper places toward the station and the university. Parking for motorcycles is available at the edge of the centre, and a short walk gets you to everything. Weekends are crowded and coach parties are common, so a weekday or an early start is much easier. Kent produces good cheese, cider and apples, and you will find the local product on most menus.

   Canterbury has about fifty-five thousand people, so fuel is straightforward, with stations on the ring road and the main approaches. The riding in and out is mostly town and A-road traffic, with roundabouts and the occasional queue, so the pleasure is saved for the lanes to the east and south, where the North Downs roll toward the coast. If you are heading to Dover or Folkestone, the road is quick, and you will see the land open toward the Channel.

3. Dover White Cliffs photo

   Dover's cliffs are not just white, they are enormous: chalk faces about a hundred metres high, bright against the sea on a sunny day, the first and last piece of England for about a thousand years of travellers. This stop sits on the clifftop on the eastern side of town, where the road gives way to open grass, a National Trust area and a long view across the Strait of Dover. On a clear day you can see the French coast, about twenty miles away, as a thin pale line.

   It is also one of the most busy approaches in Britain. Dover is the busiest ferry port in the country, and the road down into the docks can be thick with lorries, particularly when there are delays across the Channel, so check traffic before you set out. On the cliff itself the mood changes. Gulls call from the ledges, skylarks sing over the downland, and the wind is almost always present, strong enough to need a firm grip on the bike at the car park edge. Stay well back from the cliff edge, where the chalk is unstable.

   The history is thick here. Dover Castle, high on the hill behind the port, has stood for nearly a thousand years and holds tunnels used in the Second World War. Along the cliffs, the South Foreland lighthouse and the wartime sound mirrors recall the days when this coast was the front line, and the song about the white cliffs of Dover became a symbol of wartime hope. Down below, the cross-channel ferries still come and go every few minutes.

   For fuel and food, Dover has about forty-two thousand people and all the usual services, and Deal, further up the coast, has more. The cliff area has a small café and a visitor centre, though hours vary with the season. Pack a waterproof, because the weather comes in from the Channel quickly. It is a fine place at sunset, when the cliffs turn warm gold and the ships appear as dark shapes on the sea.

4. Folkestone coast swim

   Folkestone has quietly rearranged itself. A seaside resort that went through lean years has become a town of galleries, painted streets and a revived harbour, and it still has the long clifftop promenade, the Leas, laid out by the Victorians when the railway made this a place for the well-to-do. Today it is easy to spend an hour strolling there, watching the ships in the Channel, and it makes a sound pause before or after the road to Dover.

   The label here says swim, and in summer that is possible, with a shingle beach and, at low tide, a stretch of sand to the east that the locals know well. The water is cold and the shingle is hard on bare feet, so a pair of beach shoes is a good idea. Do not leave your riding gear unattended, and check for any warning flags. The harbour arm, a long stone pier with a lighthouse at the end, is a good place for a walk, and in the evening it fills with people eating and drinking.

   History is close at hand. In the First World War, Folkestone was a major departure point, and about ten million soldiers passed through the town on their way to France, marching down a steep road to the harbour that is now called the Road of Remembrance. The coast is also lined with Martello towers, small round forts built against a feared Napoleonic invasion, and the Channel Tunnel terminal sits just inland. The mixture of old and new makes the town more interesting than it first looks.

   Folkestone has more than sixty thousand people, so fuel, food and parking are straightforward. Cafés, bakeries and fish-and-chip shops are plentiful along the harbour and in the old town, and it is the easiest stop on this stretch. Riding in and out, the main roads are busy, but the lanes on the downs behind, toward Hawkinge and Elham, are quiet and pleasant, and the cliffs west of town give a good ride with views of the sea.

5. Royal Tunbridge Wells return sight

   Tunbridge Wells owes its existence to a rusty spring. In 1606 a young nobleman, Lord North, was resting in the woods here and noticed a pool with an orange scum; he tried the water, felt better and told the world. Within a few decades the court was coming down from London to drink it, and the Pantiles, a raised, colonnaded walk with trees along it, became the place to be seen taking the waters. The town was granted its Royal prefix in 1909 by Edward VII, and has been the butt of letters to the editor ever since, usually signed by someone disgusted.

   None of that matters much on a motorbike, but the setting does. Tunbridge Wells sits on the High Weald, an old ridge-and-valley country of sandstone, ancient woodland and hedges so thick the lanes run in tunnels. Right on the edge of town at Rusthall is Toad Rock, a lump of weathered sandstone that does look like a toad if you are generous, and there are many more outcrops in the woods round about. The riding south and east is some of the best in the southeast: narrow, hump-backed B-roads and unclassified lanes with blind crests and wet leaves for six months of the year. North is Penshurst and the Medway valley, west is Ashdown Forest and the road to Sussex.

   As a stop on the way back to London this is a place for sensible things. It is a proper town of nearly seventy thousand, with every fuel brand, plenty of cafés in the old Pantiles and along the high street, and public toilets by the common. If you have been out in the lanes since morning, it is a gentler re-entry than going straight onto the A21. Traffic into the town on a Friday evening is slow, so leave before four or accept the queue.

   Remember that most of the lanes around here are signed for far lower speeds than a bike wants to travel, and farm vehicles, horses and cyclists use them in numbers. Assume there is a tractor round every bend, because eventually there is.

6. Back to Westerham lanes finish

   The route ends here after 293 km.

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