The Pilgrims' Way: Otford to Wrotham

Do you remember when you were younger, you would have a Sunday where all there was to do was eat a lot of food and fall asleep on your bed, the warm afternoon sun shining through the window and making the room nice and cosy? Today was one of those days.

To begin with, my walk was not technically from Otford, it was from Kemsing. This meant I had an hour less to travel before finishing. I also had lots of time to talk about a well, which has always been my dream pastime, and an extended visit to the church, too. Since it’s Sunday, they were about to hold a service, but since I arrived around half an hour before that, I was able to get in to collect my stamp and look around. Like other instances, I was swept away by a nice old lady into extended explanations of every part of the building. She even lifted up rugs to show off the inscriptions underneath, and handed me two separate leaflets explaining the church’s detailed history. It was clearly a practiced tour, judging from how effortlessly she moved from one subject to the next, mentioning exact facts as off-hand comments barely worth acknowledging. I met the rector too; a more youthful man than I imagined one would be, and very happy to hear about my charity walk. The people setting up for service even offered me a free coffee, although I declined since I don’t drink it.

But I was finished with wells and well-wishes and was eager to get on with the walk. It was another straight line, similar to yesterday’s except that not all the paths were paved. Combined with thicker socks, I felt much better than I had by the end of the previous day and made such good progress that I arrived at Wrotham just after ten o’clock. The centre of the village is a very typical style, similar to other towns I have passed through. There are Tudor beams, Norman walls, patron saints, the usual fare. It turns out the village is so stereotypical of a small English village that there are no coffee shops or cafes for someone to sit in from the morning onwards. However, they do have three pubs (there used to be five!), a church, a post office, and a cornershop: everything you could ever need. 

So, I spent my time trying out weird flavoured soft drinks from the shop, and filming St. George’s Church. It’s the earliest church in England that can claim to be dedicated to its patron saint, and, predictably, has a connection to Jane Austen – one of her relatives was made the rector in 1800, and she visited for a time while writing Pride and Prejudice. 

By this point of the Pilgrims’ Way, from Otford onwards, the Winchester route has linked up with the London route. All of the pilgrims are assembling along the same road to reach the end goal, and I hope to meet some of them before the end. I mention this because while I was dawdling in town, I ran into the same American father/daughter duo that Freddie and I met on the very first day of the pilgrimage. We had in fact also run into each other at The White Horse in Shere, except I hadn’t recognised them at the time. They were going to try and make it to Canterbury by the 23^rd September, and planned to walk in one day what I’ve planned to take me three. We won’t meet each other again on the road, so it was a fun coincidence to see them one more time. 

I would then meet more people I had seen on the first day: Mum and Freddie (Tony and Winston were also there but they hadn’t come to Winchester, so they don’t fit the parallel quite as neatly. Just to clarify, that’s why I didn’t say them as well, I’m not suggesting they were any less valued).

Freddie looked well, although he showed me an image of his foot and I could understand why it still pained him so much to walk around. I still hope we can do some of the route together before the end, but he needs more time to heal properly. Mum had brought a hard drive so I have a place to put the different photos and videos for media purposes, which gave the whole household an excuse to travel out to say hello. What had taken me nine days to reach took them under two hours. I can’t believe how fast they can run. 

They stayed for lunch, which was a delicious Sunday roast. The table managed to order every variation of it, too: chicken, lamb, pork, and nut roast. All were cooked perfectly and came with copious amounts of roast potatoes and surprisingly good Yorkshire puddings. For dessert, I had the sticky toffee pudding. The toffee sauce had an alcoholic taste to it, which wasn’t bad enough to stop me eating the food, but soured my overall enjoyment of it. It was good to see them again, for a little while. It’s nice to know they are never far away if I need them.

Then, collectively, we were guided to a revelation about the inn itself. Since the 1280s, there has always been an inn occupying the spot that The Bull occupies now. Evidence of the age of the building is in the slanted door frames that cannot be replaced since, like the duck pond in Otford, they are listed. Several fireplaces, including in the room I am currently typing in, are out of use, but their presence still tells its own story. 

But most recently, and most impressively, is the connection to the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. West Malling, a few miles away, was an RAF base at one time, and pilots would come to The Bull in their free time frequently. This is where a fantastic example of history and humanity together can be found. If you look up at the ceiling, you can see WWII stamps. Before the roof was repainted, it was covered in stamps and the names of pilots written in soot from the fireplace. Each stamp placed next to their names represented a kill. There were even a pair of footprints from one particularly rowdy night. 

The owner of The Bull’s grandfather was involved in Dunkirk, D-Day, and campaigns in North Africa during the war, and his medals are on display in the restaurant. WWII pilots drinking in a medieval pub takes two pieces of history and smashes them together like a greatest hits album.

The rest of the day was mostly comprised of relaxing in the sunlight and listening to an acoustic set from downstairs as it wafted through the window to my room upstairs. It was lovely to take a break, but we have to start again tomorrow.