The pilgrims’ pub

The Dirty Habit, Kent Downs

In his 1913 dedication to The Icknield Way, the poet and wayfarer Edward Thomas reels off a trio of fondly remembered inns along another ancient road: the Pilgrims’ Way at the foot of Kent’s North Downs. There’s the ‘Cock’ at Detling, the ‘Black Horse’

at Thurnham and the ‘King’s Head’ at Hollingbourne. The last of these is now called The Dirty Habit, and as Thomas tells us, it’s also been known as the ‘Pilgrims’ Rest’. Both old and new names hark back to the Middle Ages, when pilgrims called in on their way to Canterbury Cathedral.

More gastro pub than monks’ ale house these days, it remains a popular watering hole for weary travellers. Many are walking the North Downs Way, which piggybacks an old chalk path up to the Woodland Trust’s Hucking Estate, where colour-coded trails thread a mosaic of chestnut coppices and chalk grasslands. Four wooden carvings tell Hucking’s story from prehistory to the present, and from spring through to late summer, the estate’s kaleidoscopic wildflowers supply nectar to 25 species of butterfly.

There’s another chance to slake your thirst at The Hook & Hatchet, then it’s back to Hollingbourne Hill, where Edward Thomas raves about the views in his lyrical book The South Country: ‘...east and west sweeps the crescent of the North Downs.’

WALK HERE: Turn to Walk 5

MORE INFO: elitepubs.com/the-dirtyhabit; 01622 880880