diamond geezer

A Nice Walk: Edenbridge High Street (½ mile)

Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, a bit of a stroll, heritage underfoot, downhill all the way, quirky timbering, Roman echoes, fully leafleted, continuous retail opportunities, a bit niche, won't take long. So here's a brief high street trawl in Kent, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.

Edenbridge is the westernmost town in Kent, i.e. very nearly in Surrey, located eight miles south of Biggin Hill. It's been a market town since 1279 and has a population of about ten thousand. It's named after a bridge across the river Eden, a major tributary of the Medway, which'll be the climax of our walk down the high street. And it's only 40 minutes by train from London Bridge should you want to head down, the more convenient of the two stations being Edenbridge Town.

The key thing about Edenbridge's high street is that it's perfectly straight because it overlays the London - Lewes Roman road. A bypass was finally built 20 years ago, chopping off the segment we're about to walk down, although it remains open to traffic throughout so best stick to the pavement. Station Approach delivers you to the top end where the key landmark is the Women's Institute Hall, because that's very much the sort of town Edenbridge is. It's already clear that the high street's going to be lined by some properly interesting buildings, but the Georgian presbytery and stained glass lantern are but a taster for what's coming later.

Things pick up properly below Boots where the first information board is, also Boyce's Bakery which is the epitome of proper family-run iced bun nirvana. Chain coffee gets a look-in at Costa opposite, the long white building formerly a coaching stop called the White Horse Inn with upper beams dated 1574. As for Magic Wok this started out as Mrs Tickle's teashop in 1860, then became a drapery, then the Co-op, now fried noodles. Follow the alley beside the stationery shop to find the former cattle market, now a car park, one end of which is reserved for town's weekly market every Thursday. I was expecting better, enticed by the website's offer to "soak up the season’s atmosphere", but in reality all I found was a very long fruit & veg stall, a table of artisan bread, some doggy treats and a glum man failing to sell any decorated reindeer.

My main reason for visiting on Thursday was that Eden Valley Museum was open (also Saturday, also Wednesday and Friday afternoons). It's based in Church House which is a 14th century, indeed upstairs you get to walk on original floorboards circa 1378. They describe themselves as a social museum and every room is packed with stuff, from hop-pickers' hoes to the old market bell, also cricket balls made locally for the 1999 World Cup and ten gold Iron Age coins unearthed nearby in Chiddingstone. I confess I never knew Winston Churchill won top prize for the best fat sow at the Edenbridge Fatstock Show in 1933 (one of his Blue and White crossbreeds, not the man himself). The place feels proper in a way that many glossier museums don't, also they retain an astonishing amount of local backstory in a full case of ring binders, also the volunteers are lovely, also it's all free.

The next building down is Ye Olde Crown Inn which is even older than Church House, still with a central gap where carriages would have been driven to the stables round the back. The pub juts out into the high street causing a long-term impediment to traffic, but on the positive side this means a narrower gap for its inn sign to span the street. The town square is similarly compact and perversely triangular, off which a short side street leads to the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. The font and Broach spire are 13th century, the door was locked and I'm afraid Edward Burne-Jones' stained glass window doesn't look so impressive from outside. Don't go hunting for the old tannery, once Edenbridge's largest employer, because that closed in 1974 and Waitrose has been built in its place.

You get quite blasé about shops in old buildings by the foot of the high street, even if they are just doling out tattoos or chips. Just past the final tandoori is the feature than gives the town its name, the Great Stone Bridge, although this is a Victorian replacement for the previous five-arch packhorse version. A trust set up in 1511 to maintain the bridge has since abdicated its responsibility to Kent council but still doles out its dosh to charitable causes. And at the subsequent mini-roundabout the bypass swings in from the right bringing this nice walk to a close. I hope you appreciate this photo because three black-clad teenagers on the riverbank took offence and started following me after I'd taken it, despite me having ensured they weren't in shot.

I had hoped to continue along the riverbank but that was an absolute mudbath so I thought better of it. It's a shame because the town council have published ten excellent walking routes in the locality, also multiple heritage trails around the town because where else do you think I got all the above information from? Leaflets are freely available at the museum and also at the station, indeed I've rarely been to a town as engaged with its heritage as is Edenbridge.