Features of Our Walks

The North Downs countryside around Borough Green in Kent has many opportunities for interesting walks within easy reach of the Capital. Our Borough Green walk, ably led by Nick, was about 13½ miles (21⅔ Km) long, and we had a total ascent of over 800 feet or ¼ Km. For a day walk near London these were reasonably respectable figures, indicating that we were quite fit! In summer, the undulating landscape is refreshingly green and leafy.

Saint Leonard's Tower is a sort of southern gateway to West Malling. The tower was built between 1077 and 1108 by Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester. What was the purpose of the tower? Was it part of a larger castle, or did it belong to a church, or was it an administrative centre for the Bishop's estates? Anyway, it's an interesting landmark on our walk.

Now prepare ye for some plots and graphs. Not too overwhelming, but hopefully quite interesting! You will see here:

• How far were we from the Centre of London?
• Outline Map of Our Walk
• Height Profile of Our Walk
• Some Facts and Figures
• Average Rising and Falling Gradients
• Less Quantifiable Considerations
• Timing & Speed
• Track File
• Postscript


• Please Read Me! Thankyou!

How far were we from the Centre of London?

Our start and end points were Borough Green (BRG) and East Malling (EML) stations respectively, which lie about 24 and 29 miles, very roughly south east of the centre of London. The centre of London is officially taken as the intersection of The Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street. This intersection is often referred to as Charing Cross, not to be confused with the nearby Victorian Eleanor Cross itself, nor the station in front of which the cross stands. The detailed figures, for the fun of it, are as shown below.

The start and end points of our walk were
both within a 29 mile radius, and both roughly south east, of the centre of London.

Our "straight line" distances are actually "great circle" distances on the earth's surface. We assume the earth to be spherical, which is not far off the mark. Assuming the earth to be a sphere gives us an error of about 0.1% in our distance values. Not that much really! Can't complain! Indeed, we can speak of the distances as the "hypothetical crow" (cornix hypothetica) flies.

Cornix Hypothetica, our hypothetical crow,
isn't any old bird, as we should know.
Cornix Hypothetica many miles for us can go,
and many a "straight line" on Earth can show.

And here you can see the start point of our walk in the context of:
(1) the South East of England, (2) the centre of London (Charing X) and (3) the M25.

Outline Map of Our Walk

Our "linear" walk from Borough Green to East Malling took in Old Soar Manor, the Mereworth Woods and the historic village of Offham. We reached East Malling well before nightfall. A nice relaxing walk with only a modest total ascent.

Outline Map of Our Walk

We were east of the Greenwich meridian. The map grid scales translate to 1.112 Km per 0.01 latitude and a mean of 0.696 Km per 0.01 longitude (WGS standard), both when using 6371.0 Km as the volumetric mean radius of the earth. It is interesting to compare the present longitude distance-to-degree ratio with that for other walks. It you do this, you will see that the further north you go, the less Km per degree longitude you get. Once you get to the Lake District the reduction in this ratio compared to that for walks in the south-east is quite noticeable. In Scales, in the Lake District, we already have a slightly smaller value of 0.644 Km per 0.01 longitude - a difference of 51 metres per 0.01 longitude compared with our present Borough Green walk.

Because we don't live on a flat earth - unless you are a convinced "flat-earther" - maps are inevitably a distortion of what is. In other words, it's all a matter of mapping a curvaceous surface onto a flat surface. We don't want to carry curvaceous representations of the terrain on our walks, do we? In our case, the northern length of our map grid is stretched out by something like an extra 0.10 %, to make it the same on the page as the length of the southern part of our map grid. Not that much for hiking purposes really! Can't complain.

Height Profile of Our Walk

We reached our highest point at 169 m (554 feet) above mean sea level close to the Forest Ranger's (Warden's) House in Mereworth Woods - as per our "Facts and Figures" just below. This, of course, is compatible with our total ascent of 248 m (814 feet). Indeed, it's the total ascent which gets closer to being a measure of our fitness, rather than the maximum height reached.

Height Profile

The above plot uses a true origin for the vertical elevation (height) axis, so as not to lose track of reality. What a worthy aim!

Some Facts and Figures

Here are some "vital statistics" in metric and imperial units. The total length our walk is measured on the surface of the WSG84 spheroid. However, we can consider this, without undue loss of accuracy, as being on a conceptual "flat" plane at mean sea level, using the OS sea level reference as explained on OS "hiking" maps. There you are!

"Walk facts and figures"

Average Rising and Falling Gradients

And here, for the numerical fun of it, are the average gradients we overcame on our walks. The rising and falling (negative) gradients are both averaged over the distances given, with level stretches having rises and falls of less than metre.

Rising and Falling Gradients

By comparison, Hertfordshire County Council recommends that its roads should not have longitudinal gradients of more than 5% and one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world, in Austria, has a maximum gradient of 11.6%.

By way of further interest, the clockwise route of the Fairfield Horseshoe in the Lake District has a total distance of 15.62 Km (9.71 miles), with the following calculations: an average rising gradient of 14.66% over 6.589 Km, a level part over 0.345 Km, and an average falling gradient of 11.11% over 8.676 Km. This is seen by many as really quite challenging - but then, when you compare it with our Borough Green walk, it can be said that we had more leisurely and less demanding aims compared with Lakeland challenges!

Less Quantifiable Considerations

On any walk there are considerations which are very real but tantalizingly out of ready reach of those who wish to espouse a numerical approach to many of life's activities. Here are three considerations for starters.

• Weather: As the pictures show, we had good walking weather with plenty of sunshine. Average temperature as recorded at the nearby Biggin Hill aerodrome between start and finish of our walk averaged almost 18 °C, just fine for walking.



Temperatures recorded at Biggin Hill Aerodrome on Sunday 18th September 2016


• Ground Conditions: There were hardly any muddy places.


• Signposting: This was mainly of the nature "here's a footpath" or "here's a bridleway". However, we had OS maps to tell us where we were headed.

Timing and Speed

It's one thing to discuss the terrain over which we walk. It's quite another to ask how we personally respond to walking over that terrain. There are a number of considerations, of which timing and speed can be taken as starting points, should you wish to wax enthusiastic in these areas!

• Timing: Our walk started at about 10:20 and finished at about 16:50 with a total stop time of about 1½ hours.


• Speed: With a total distance of 13.24 miles, this yielded about 2.64 mph or almost 2⅔ mph. This is a "normal sort of" walking speed, perhaps slightly fast, but really, as I'm sure you'll agree, quite acceptable for those of a CLOGgie calibre.

Track File

If you are keen to see our walks superimposed on an Ordnance Survey® (OS) map or on another system such as Google Maps®, then you can use this file to do so. The numerical data in this file were hand-plotted by me from memory (no GPS!) on my return home. The data are based on WGS84. Of course, for copyright reasons, I do not show the OS-based or Google-based maps here.

Postscript

Any map is an approximate representation of what is. Practicality and scale are relevant considerations. We are not dealing with a planning application calling for detailed spatial descriptions of intricate boundaries. For us in the hiking community, the degrees of accuracy and precision should be just enough to give us useable and helpful knowledge of the terrain about us and beneath our feet. I hope my humble endeavours on this page are in this respect interesting for, and useful to, you my reader!