Knockholt

Rural motorway roadkill outpost

Map | Website

Here we are, at the end of a very, very long tunnel, in a 1:200 scale model of a regular station. The ticket office looks like a Lego brick you left under your bed when you were a child. And the platforms are about as narrow as a window ledge; that is, a window ledge on a doll's house. Seeing as trains only actually stop here hourly, and finish at the absurdly early time of 8pm, it's a wonder that the 3,583 other trains that go past here per day haven't dragged anyone to their death.

"Metropolis" isn't quite the right word for what you see when you leave the station. It's a wide, empty road, with two houses, fields, and nothing at all for a quarter of a mile either side. The road sign unfavourably says "Sevenoaks Road, Halstead". What the hell is the point of putting a station here?

Walk one way for ten minutes, and you get to a roundabout feeding onto the M25. You might take a moment here to imagine Iain Sinclair strolling around here, philosophising on David Rodinsky and using very long words to describe the ennui of travelling alone, before being struck by a lorry full of fridge freezers.

Walk the other way for ten minutes, past speeding motorists and pampas grass, and you get to a human settlement. If you can call "human" a prefab with painted lightbulbs with an A4 notice "BUS DEPOT" taped on the side, and a cedar greenhouse store.

World's least natural-looking tree stump

One path from the crossroads leads over the railway; you only realise that it's a fast sliproad when you're startled by a speeding car appearing from round the corner, nearly leaving you embedded in the soft tarmac. The other path is narrow, leading uphill, and rather worryingly passing a "no speed limit applies" sign. It passes high-fenced cottages, with trampolines the size of whales in their gardens, and keeps threatening to peter out in an adjacent golf course.

Continuing along the road, a path starts appearing in the verge. It's occasionally difficult to see, because of the number of catkins, dead squirrels and Tennants Super cans blocking it. Apart from the hourly big, blue, rusty and vacant buses going to Tunbridge Wells whooshing past, there's only two ways to get around in this area; by horse, and by E-type Jaguar. Walking hasn't been invented here yet.

Residents of Zone 6, #30 – Knockholt

Horse or pony? Riding crop or apple picker? Man or woman?

After a while, the hedgerows and bushy covering disappear. The road narrows. The ground swells, and you start smelling something bad. This is a big roundabout called Pratt's Bottom. Now it becomes clear why Knockholt station was called after a village over three miles away — naming it after anything closer would attract sniggering tourists.

Genuine excerpts from bus timetable near Knockholt

The roundabout features at least some commercial activity; a petrol station, a path to some stables, and a Christian bookshop disguised as a pub. The R5 bus is available from here to the real Knockholt, which leaves... wait for it... every two hours. Wait for it you indeed will.

If one chooses to walk to Knockholt from the roundabout, make sure you pack camping supplies. And a blindfold; there are some very ugly out-of-the-box redbrick developments here. Your first stop on the road to Knockholt is the community of Pratts Bottom, the village. (Attention all apostrophe fans! The roundabout has the punctuation, while the village does not. Why? Who cares?)

Pratts Bottom is most remarkable for its pub, post office, house with a roof shaped like a cutting on a rhinoplasty surgery floor and local newspaper board that reads "ARSON ATTACK ON CHARITY HOME". Apparently there was once a zoo here; Pratts Bottom's website has "a photo of the python-wrestling lady proprietor to prove it! Click on photo for enlargement." I'd rather not, thanks.

The jokes just write themselves

Go south out of Pratts Bottom (and that wasn't even supposed to be funny) and the path splits from the road, forcing you along a bridlepath and yes, more stables. Here you pass several horses dressed like Batman, and possibly even sunburnt blokes chopping wood listening to Duran Duran.

Eventually you reach a "Welcome to Bromley" sign (?) and the metropolitan boundary of Knockholt. For the first half-mile, there are ostentatious houses with high hedges, villas with pillars and all the trappings of suburban gentry. Then you reach the 30 mile speed limit sound and everything becomes crappy again.

There's something faintly disturbing about Knockholt itself; it's not dissimilar to that village in The Prisoner. It's somehow perfect and hollow at the same time. There's an iron-cast KNOCKHOLT 2000 sign, an ersatz pub, some bungalows and a flower bed. The only business in the village is OxinFlames Ltd, the car service shop that also does pagan rituals.

If you are lucky enough to find an R5 bus back, you can avoid mortal combat with white floating indestructible balloons. Best of all, you can use your Zone 6 travelcard to escape what's probably the most inaccessible place in London with an Oyster.

Statistics

Time to Zone 1 31mins on South Eastern (London Bridge)
Last trains to Zone 1 Watch out – very early. Mon-Fri 2000, Sat 2029, Sun 1850 (!)
Ticket gates? Pfft.

What to do if you get stuck in Knockholt after the last train to Zone 1

It's extraordinarily difficult getting out even before the last train to Zone 1. The buses will have finished by 8pm, and there isn't even any other transport on Sunday. Luckily, you're not entirely out of reach if you're ready for a walk. There are some rare hourly buses just over a mile and a half away in Chelsfield village; you should be able to find a sign.