Farthing Downs - 21 February 2009

During a recent visit to areas south of London we drove along the top of Farthing Downs and so liked what we saw that we were keen to revisit the area. A book we were given before we left NZ has 28 walks in and around London, and we had done 26 of them. One of the two remaining took in Farthing Downs and Happy Valley so with a beautiful late-winter day at hand we set off to tick off the penultimate walk in the book.

We went via Caterham, once the home of the iconic British two-seater sports car, the Caterham 7. Production has moved to Dartford but a showroom remains.

From there it was off to Farthing Downs to begin our 7-mile walk that took in the North Downs, woodlands, meadows and the village of Chaldon. The pretty little 12thC flint church is home to one of the oldest church wall paintings in England and the churchyard provided a great display of snowdrops.