Alphabetical Kent: Acrise

As part of a project to get to know my home county a bit better, I'm visiting one randomly chosen place (that I've never been to before) beginning with each letter. Here's A.

Acrise is a hamlet in southeast Kent, about 6 miles north of Folkestone. The civil parish had a population of 172 people according to the 2011 census, which should give you an idea of the size of Acrise. I wasn't particularly enthused by my (or rather Excel's) choice for my first location of this project, especially after a glance at a map showed a church and not much else. However, maps don't tell you everything, and so I set off on a dull, slightly snowy morning to start a 2 hour journey, beginning with a bus to my local station (I could've walked, but I was feeling lazy). From the station it was a train to Canterbury, then a bus ride down to Densole. From here walking was my only option.

The walk into Acrise took about 25 minutes, down a straight flat country lane at first, lined by low bungalows on one side, and open fields on the other. The snow had picked up slightly by this point, and a fair breeze was blowing it all around, adding to the already chilly conditions. Cars were an infrequent hazard (no pavements here), and a couple of dog walkers were the only people I saw for the next hour. Coming to a crossroads, I was formally welcomed into Acrise, with the sign also proclaiming it to be in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Here the lane got narrower and more undulating, and I soon found myself descending into a small valley. The fields on either side, with the exception of one small paddock containing a few horses, were strangely devoid of flora or fauna save grass, and it didn't take long to find out why; Ministry of Defence signs proclaimed the area to be used for troop training, and forbade access to the public. Never mind, my destination was just up the other side of the aforementioned valley.

And suddenly I was in the centre of Acrise.The road I was on formed a small triangular junction with another road that led off to the north, towards Swingfield and Denton according to the signpost in the middle. The signpost also told me where the church was located, not that I would've had much trouble finding it, given the lack of much else significant in the vicinity. I therefore squeezed through a narrow gap between a fencepost and a white gate and set off up a muddy path towards the church. The church is dedicated to St. Martin, and is from Norman times, although much of the original architecture has been hidden behind 14th century alterations. It's a small, simple church, and reputedly has remains of a wall painting depicting Saint Martin himself to the side of the chancel arch.

I say reputedly because unfortunately the church was locked and gated on my visit, and so the above information has been lifted from the informative Friends of St Martin's Church website. The outer walls of the church were discouragingly lacking in any sort of information, historical or otherwise, and so my initial curiosity about the church was left unsated at the time. I wandered cautiously round the side of the church, taking care to avoid any graves, but the church remained stubbornly obstinate in its absence of any sort of interesting fact, and so I decided to head back out to the road.

The only other building of significance in Acrise is Acrise Place, which borders the church on its western side. Some history about the house can be found here, but suffice to say the site was definitely not open to the common public thankyouverymuch. Apart from that, there was a small trading estate with a large warehouse and some small stone outhouses (and a surprising number of Jaguars parked up), and a couple of farm houses further up the road. Generally speaking however, this was not the most auspicious start to this project, and as I walked back to Densole to catch a bus and start my journey back home, I was already wondering what I'd do if the whole project turned out like this. I guess I'll just have to hope Excel throws me somewhere slightly more interesting for B.

Some more pictures from this trip on Flickr:

Projects

Last October, as I mentioned previously, I finished a project to walk the entirety of the London Underground. It was a triumphant moment, but also a sad one; the project had taken nearly 4 years, and now it was over, leaving a void in my life. A void that needed to be filled. So I have not one but two projects in the pipeline, the first of which is partly the inspiration behind me starting this blog.

PROJECT THE FIRST

THE LONDON LOOP

Yes, it's not the most original of projects, but it's another long distance walking challenge, except this time I'm going to try to complete this in less than 4 years. The Transport for London website splits this into 24 stages, but I've condensed it down into 11 because some of the stages are only a few miles long.

Stage	Route	Stage mileage
1	Erith to Petts Wood	15.5
2	Petts Wood to West Wickham Common	9
3	West Wickham to Coulsdon South	16
4	Couldston South to Kingston Bridge	15.3
5	Kingston Bridge to Hayes & Harlington	12
6	Hayes & Harlington to Moor Park	17
7	Moor Park to Elstree	13.8
8	Elstree to Cockfosters	10
9	Cockfosters to Chingford	13.5
10	Chingford to Harold Wood	14.3
11	Harold Wood to Purfleet	13

I was going to start this last Saturday, but work got in the way, so I'm not sure when I'll be setting off from Erith yet; rest assured it won't be too long. Onto the second project...

PROJECT THE SECOND

 

ALPHABETICAL KENT

 If you think this is what it sounds like, then you're probably right. I've done some thorough research (read: a quick Google search), and procured a fairly comprehensive list of settlements in Kent. The aim then, is to visit one beginning with each letter of the alphabet that I've never been to before. There are no places beginning with J, X or Z, so that's 23 places in all, randomly selected for each letter. This will probably be a slightly longer term project than the London Loop one, as to maximise public transport options I'm only going to visit places on weekdays, which rather limits the days available.

Having London almost on my doorstep and freely accessible for much of my life has meant I've often neglected my home county in favour of the metropolis; this project's aim is to correct that at least a little bit, and it should be damned enjoyable to boot.

I'm already looking forward to starting both of these projects, and for the first time writing about them as well; I hope you'll enjoy reading about them too.

Walking

I love a good walk.

Ever since I was a child I enjoyed going down to town with my mum every Saturday; a couple of miles or so there and back. When I was around 14 years old I started going for short walks on Sunday mornings; nothing too strenuous, nowhere particularly special, just for the fun of the walk. We'd go on the occasional country walk as a family, again nothing too long, a couple of hours out in rural Kent. But on the 30th June 2011, I stepped off a train at West Brompton*, ready to begin a walk to Woolwich Arsenal*, nearly 16 miles away. It was longer than anything I'd done before; I had no map to guide me, just a vague sense of direction, east along the river. It took me almost 7 hours, and I was exhausted by the end of it. Little did I realise it was the start of something big for me.

Since that first walk, I've recorded over 50 walks of varying distances, from a couple of miles up to over 20. I've walked from A to B, I've done circular walks, but mainly I've walked transport related walks: the Underground (more on that at some point), pre-2015 Overground, DLR and Tramlink, and even a National Rail route. I've walked the Thames from Maidenhead to the estuary, and this year I'm planning to walk the London Loop (this is the project I mentioned in the last post). Overall I have over 700 miles worth of walking logged, around 10 and half days of my life spent pounding the pavements.

Which begs the question: why? To that I say: why not? Walking is the best way to see somewhere as it really is, to explore properly, to experience fleetingly the lives of everyone who lives in a place you're merely passing through. My walks have taken me to locations I never would have gone to in any other circumstance, some fantastic, some not quite so. Everywhere I've visited I'm glad I have, regardless of how good or bad it was, to experience the novelty of a new area, an unexplored neighbourhood, the idea of "I wonder what's round here?".

Work means I no longer have the freedom of days unfilled to pursue this most ancient of pastimes; nevertheless I shall carry on walking whenever I can, and starting now, I'll be sharing it with you as well.

*- These stations chosen because at the time I had free rail travel to both stations as a result of my dad working on the railways, in case you wondered why I chose two such random points!

An introduction...

Ah, the awkward second post. Much like trying to write the follow up to the first hit single, it can be difficult to ensure you write something of similarly excellent quality to that stellar opening post.

Except I don't have that problem, because my first post was a load of rambling nonsense really. So whatever I write today doesn't have to be particularly brilliant to be better, which takes some of that crushing pressure off. Good job really, because today's post is intended to be a bit more of an introduction to me, my way of letting you get to know who I am in some small sense, and these sorts of posts are always a bit self-indulgent and therefore a bit crap. Never mind.

So, what to tell you about myself? What to reveal, what to keep a closely guarded secret? Let's start off with my name. No, not my real name; that's going to remain one of those aforementioned secrets. Nope, I'm talking about my blog name, Travelling Man of Kent. This should immediately tell you 3 things about me:

1. I do some amount of travelling
2. I am a man
3. I am from or live in Kent

See, this is going swimmingly, isn't it? But that's all surface information; let's delve a little deeper. Take for instance "Man of Kent" which, if you know your Kentish history, you'll know means I was born east of the River Medway (and if you didn't, well now you do). One could ask what sort of travelling I do, and I'd tell you I like trains, and walking, and any and all London transport (more on all of that at some point). You might even be aware of an obscure card game, which is where the "Travelling Man" comes from (my 1st year of university [another fact about me!{aren't embedded brackets fun}]).

Well I think that's quite enough to be getting on with for now; really, the best way to get to know me is to read this blog (wink wink nudge nudge).

P.S. Starting a project tomorrow, more later (maybe...)

The First One...

I've done it. I've taken the plunge into the murky world of online blogging. At half past 3 in the morning. Who needs sleep?

I do actually; I've got work in the afternoon, and given the fact I fell asleep on the train home tonight, I would think I need a bit more sleep than what I got last night. Anyway, enough rambling on about sleep. Let's talk blogging. What's this blog about, I hear you wonder? (Who am I talking to, nobody's going to read this). What's this guy got to offer that others don't?

Nothing. Bugger all. Everything I write about will probably have been written about before, by someone else on a much more popular blog; so why bother? I'm bothering because this blog is as much for me as it is for anyone who wants to read my thoughts on travelling, walking, London, music, Kent, commuting, trains, maps, photography, the Underground and anything else I fancy writing about (aha, answered that first question now). I can't even promise you daily posts; in fact, I'm ruling that out from the start. I'm not promising quality, wit, or even particularly interesting content. What I can promise is posts about stuff that I find interesting, and hopefully some of the time at least it'll be interesting to other people as well. There'll be a lot of pictures, quite a few quizzes and even a sprinkling of some good old British moaning from time to time.

Well, I really must get to bed; I don't think I am going to get any more sleep than I did last night...

Ah well.