Pluckley, Pevington, Chart Court and Little Chart

The route out of the village follows a ragstone ridge to Egerton, with Egerton's church tower visible ahead, except when obscured by trees. There are spectacular views of the High Weald to the south-west; to the north are the chalk downs beyond Charing. The River Stour rises below the ridge in the vale of Holmesdale, to start its wandering journey to the sea at Pegwell Bay.

This is a landscape of fruit and trees, of orchards and old parkland, a gentle, fertile land. The writer HE Bates lived here and used the setting for the country life of his enduring creations, the Larkin family, in his Darling Buds of May books. Oast-houses tower over sheets of blossom in spring, while in autumn, the immaculately tended orchards are filled with pickers, gathering apples and pears.

Pevington is one of many hamlets and little manors that cover Kent. The manor is mentioned in the Domesday Book. The present 17th-century house, with a holm oak at the gate and white comfrey on the verges, is on the site of the former manor house. The path passes close to the site of an earlier manorial dwelling, a mound in the centre of a moat, which was excavated in 1955. There was a square hall here, with a central hearth for a fire, built in the 13th-century. It was lived in for 400 years, perhaps as a dower house, before being abandoned.

Further on is another abandoned building, the medieval church of St Mary. Before the inhabitants moved to work in the paper mill further down the valley, this was the centre of the village. The church was abandoned only after it was hit by a flying bomb on 16 August, 1944. The tower still stands, surrounded by tall pines and ancient yews.

Chart Court and Chart Court Farm, beside the church, occupy the site of the old manorial buildings. A restored 17th-century timber-framed barn is visible from the road, and, as you leave the churchyard, you can see working oast-houses and a stowage for processing hops.

The past follows the old road from St Mary's to Ford Paper Mill. The villages walked this way every Sunday from their new settlement to their old church. The ragstone edge of the pavement that helped to keep Sunday best clothes and shoes in good trim can still be seen.

On the hill to your left, a Jacobean stable block with a cupola is all that remains of Calehill House, which was home to the clergyman and antiquarian William Darell. Altogether, the Darell family lived at Calehill for 500 years. The house, which was surrounded by a deer park, was pulled down in 1956.

The path goes through Little Chart paper mill and emerges onto the village green, between two timber-framed cottages. Bank House to your left is a 16th-century jettied house whose unstained oak contrasts with its ochre-painted plaster panels. On the northern gable, either side of its chimney stack, are vertical timbers that once supported a wood and plaster smoke-hood, the precursor of the brick stack.

Across the river, at the south end of the green, the route passes The Swan Inn, a medieval timber-framed building that was encased in brick in the 18th-century. Straight ahead is the red brick wall of the Deer Park, enclosed by Sir Edward Dering in the reign of George I. Within the park is a brick church, built in 1955 to replace St Mary's. The Darell monuments inside come from the bombed medieval church.

Little Chart is the perfect setting for a cricket match; the square is at the centre of a huge green that is set among picturesque houses and farm buildings of every period. Ducks waddle about from the pond nearby. This hamlet is where H E Bates lived from 1931-1974.

The walk back to Pluckley goes through the deer park of Surrenden, described by Edward Hasted, a Kent historian, as "beautifully cloathed with timber and rich pastures". The estate was never up for sale between the Norman Conquest and 1928. The Derings lived here from the 15th century. After 1928, the House became a school. It was demolished after a fire in 1953.

Sheerland Farm was the home farm of the estate. Built in 1813, the solid house reflects the farming prosperity of the country during the Napoleonic Wars. The six horse weather-vanes on the oast-houses are a local landmark.

Pluckley is reputed to be the most haunted village in Kent, with a reported 12 ghosts. As well as a white lady at Surrenden and a red lady in the churchyard, there are supposedly monks and highwaymen, and phantom coaches on the surrounding roads.

From Pluckley churchyard, there is wonderful view to the south over the Weald. There is a great number of old tombstones, including a fine 17th-century folk-art stone west of the south porch, dedicated to a Thomasina Norden. Below the face, which has the pursed mouth and bagged eyes of an old lady, the ends of bones can be seen. St Nicholas' Church was the setting for the wedding of Mariette and Charlie (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Phillip Franks) in the television production of the Darling Buds of May. Inside the church are monuments to members of the Dering family and brasses set in slabs of local Bethersden Marble.