The Magic of Luddesdown

`The Magic of Luddesdown’ discovered by Raymond Bassett in 1939

Ray’s prowess with the written word was recognised at an early age. His English teacher would set his
class homework and tell young Raymond “Bassett! Write about anything you choose.”
`The magic of Luddesdown’ was the first article that Ray wrote after relinquishing his grip on the
Signpost editorial helm. It featured in the June 2008 Signpost. I too found Luddesdown an enchanting
place, but needed Ray’s journalistic and observational skills, but most of all his almost life-long love of
Luddesdown, to bring it all to life. This is the article, to enjoy once more:

“Wow! This is really wild country”. The awed exclamation of approval came from one of the three 15 year old schoolboys, as they eased off their bicycle saddles to regard the view. Ahead of them, Wrangling Lane dwindled from rough tarmac to earthen track, while all around wooded hills and deserted fields seemed ready to swallow them up. No cars, no people, no noise but that of indeterminate birds. They had it all to themselves. All this … nowhere!
The time: some-time in early 1939. The three, Raymond Drean, Colin Taprill and Raymond Bassett were on one of their out of school `explores’. At every opportunity they pored over a battered OS map of North Kent, to find somewhere different to ride. With sandwiches and squash in their saddlebags, once met after breakfast they were out until teatime. Bluebell Hill directed them via Aylesford’s cherry and apple blossom, to fantasise at the mysterious cromlechs of Kits Coty House and Little Kits Coty. Or along the PilgrimsWay, to Boxley Abbey. The `Baron’s Collar’ (Common Road) above Burham via the quaint little hedge tavern of Robin Hood and Little John until the road dwindled to a wood-side path above Monks Wood to Nashenden Farm and Borstal.

Perhaps the river beckoned. Borstal again, and that riverside path to Short’s factory, where a newly built Sunderland flying boat stood on the slips or roared southward along the Medway to take off on a test flight. Watching a huffler at work, expertly lowering the heavy sails of a barge rapidly to `shoot’ the bridge, then hoist them up, again rapidly, to make the most of the ebb tide. Strood Pier – more sailing barges and the shrimping bawleys, unloading their mouth-watering cargoes. Over Frindsbury Hill to Upnor and that magnificent Arethusa sail-training ship.

But this was Luddesdown. Ignoring the ugly cement factory at Cuxton, they’d turned aside from the Bush Valley road to Cobham and  headed south. The first thing to catch their eyes were twelve or thirteen magnificent red cock pheasants, strutting imperiously across the  plough below Red Wood, sampling the farmer’s new sown seed. A fox shot across the lane in front of them, rabbits romping elsewhere,  and so many birds. Hedge bottoms bright with celandines and clumps of primroses under blackthorn blossom.

Down to the right, an old church clustered with a biggish old house and farm buildings. A man and a sheepdog led some cattle out of a  barn. Otherwise, no-one in sight anywhere. Just acres of farmed fields, under a great green shoulder of a hill. So peaceful, so quiet … Farther on, in a dip, another farm to the right, while to the left, a long, densely wooded ridge marched parallel to the road. Then, as they  reached the end of the tarmac, what’s that? Gosh! An old ruined church in an empty field! But where was its ghostly congregation? No houses, no people, no graves. Perhaps it was a pilgrim’s church? Fascinating..

Then the woods did swallow them, decanted them onto the road to Snodland, from which they turned back at the first opportunity –  Holly Hill. That’s better, road became woodland path again, along the ridge that now forms part of the North Downs Way. All to  themselves again, among scattered primroses, until a stony track took them steeply down to the Buckland Road above that idyllic  cluster of Luddesdown Church and Court.
`Wonderful’, they thought. Wonder who Ludd was? Wasn’t there a King Ludd? Can’t have lived here, can he? They rested again from  their saddles and reflected on the day. It had been such an escape from the noise of Rochester, the A2 and all that. No noise, no traffic.  Even from Cobham, you would hardly know this place existed. It was our `secret place’, our Shangri-La’! And there is so much more to  see. Must come back! But in fact our three explorers never did. Exams intervened, then war broke out and Rochester’s Mathematical  School was evacuated to Porthcawl in Wales. For two of them, Luddesdown was to remain just a boyhood memory.
Just for one of them the magic was to be rediscovered when, 21 years later, he was to cycle out from Rochester again, with his new  bride. With her, he was to discover that there was more, much more, to the magic of Luddesdown than the three 15-year- olds had ever  dreamed.