Ide Hill combines an Edwardian hillside garden with a village shaped by its history and several opportunities to explore on foot. Emmetts Garden, Ide Hill Conservation Area and trails in the woodland offer different starting points for a stay. Depending on your interests, you can focus on the garden, listed buildings, the Greensand Way or views of the Kent Weald and Bough Beech Reservoir.
Emmetts Garden and the village
Emmetts Garden is an Edwardian hillside garden in Ide Hill. The Toys Hill and Emmetts Garden circular walk follows a public footpath through the garden and into the village of Ide Hill. This makes it a practical way to combine the garden and village in one walk. Dogs are welcome on the circular walk; however, they must be kept on a lead inside Emmetts Garden. If you are walking with a dog, bear this requirement in mind for the garden section.
The area designated as Ide Hill Conservation Area covers 6.8 hectares and contains seven listed buildings, including the K6 telephone kiosk. The Cock Inn is in the parish of Sundridge with Ide Hill. The building dates from the 18th century, has two storeys and is clad in wood. The area and building count describe the wider area, while the date, number of storeys and wood cladding are specific features of The Cock Inn: two different ways to explore the village’s built heritage.
Trails and landscape views
After leaving the village green, the Ide Hill trail joins the Greensand Way. The woodland at Ide Hill offers views of the Kent Weald. There are also circular trails on the Ide Hill site with views of Bough Beech Reservoir. These offer different landscape features to choose from: a view of the Kent Weald and circular trails overlooking the reservoir.
Near Toys Hill, several surfaced, signposted trails lead from the car park around the site. One of these trails is wheelchair-accessible. If the trail surface or wheelchair accessibility matters for your walk, this nearby area offers a specific option to consider. Wheelchair accessibility applies to one of the trails there.
The walk from the Toy’s Hill car park to The Cock Inn in Ide Hill takes about 50 minutes. Use this as a guide only for this route, not as a general walking time for the circular walk through Emmetts Garden or the Ide Hill trail. When planning your outing, you can consider the destination first and then the time needed for that particular route: the garden and village, the Greensand Way or the viewpoints in the woodland.
Discover more destinations: Stone, Swanley, Northfleet, Nonington, Swingfield, Sittingbourne, Bearsted, Southborough.
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