Having a free morning I rode out to Chalkpit Lane to take some photos.
First of all, the Surrey/Kent/LB Bromley triple point. My front wheel is in Surrey, the far side of my back wheel is London Borough of Bromley and the nearside is Kent.
As I rode through Tatsfield someone shouted "tosser!" at me. Probably one of
@GuyBoden 's friends
Next stop ...
First you ride past the entrance to the Chalk Pit itself. This was the scene of the gruesome discovery in 1946 of the body of John McMain Mudie in what became known as
The Chalk-pit Murder He was killed by a dodgy Australian politician (and possible serial killer) called Thomas Ley. Ley escaped the noose but died soon after being committed to Broadmoor.
It's a bit daunting because you can see the ridge above you, and it's very close - and very high. I sometimes go walking round here and there are some stupid footpaths that go directly up the slope. One is actually a big flight of steps.
There's an ominous warning sign as you approach the hill. It's not true that it's 20%. The steepest my Garmin recorded was 18.4% But it
averages 13% over 1km so it is definitely steep. The
Ordnance survey only give it a single chevron which suggests they agree with me that it's not 20% or over There are very few double chevrons in the area. One is Succombs Hill in Warlingham a bit to the north - that's horribly steep and quite busy with traffic so not nice. Anyway, back to Chalkpit Lane ...
It proved to be difficult to stop for photographs on the hill itself. I couldn't stop on the hairpin because I was struggling to keep the bike upright and actually moving, and there was a fair bit of traffic. I did pull over a bit later when the traffic cleared, but it's not very photogenic. This is looking back down the hill to the hairpin.
The Garmin reckoned it was 17% where I stopped. Restarting after the photo was a bit of a challenge, but I managed it.
