Eynsford's Big Green Week June 2026

Eynsford’s Big Green Week, 4 - 20^th June 2026

Once again the Parish Green Team are taking up the challenge of the national Big Green Week, this time with more activities and events than ever before. Our theme this year is ‘Chalk’! We celebrate and explore our chalk landscape; the river that runs through it and the biodiversity it supports.

The keen eyed amongst you will have spotted that our ‘week’ is rather longer than normal – we just couldn’t fit everything in seven days, so cheekily we are stretching time!

The programme:

3-4 June

School Workshop

Specially for years 5 and 6, an in-school workshop by the Kent Downs National Landscape ‘geoanimator’ on Chalk, fossils and the megaflood. (Anthony Roper School)

2-4pm, Saturday, 6^th June: Scout Hall

Creating our Village

Art Workshop for families/all ages. – Booking required £ £5 each(under 5s free) Meet at the meadow, main workshop in the scout hall. Teas, coffee and biscuits available.

Working together we will create an exciting new map of our village. With our artist guide we will start with a walk along chalk hill with everyone encouraged to take photographs and collect small items (chalk, stones, leaves etc) to use as inspiration for collaborative artwork.

Once at the scout hut each person will be given an enlarged piece from a map of Eynsford. Using collage, other simple materials and even the chalk you have found, you will use this inspiration to bring to life the roads, houses and fields shown on the map. At the end of the session the local artist will bring all the sections of the map together to create a vision of our village created through nature.

We will be showing the final work in St Martin's Church on Friday 12^th June 6.30-8.30pm. A photographer will take a high-quality image of the map and all participants will be sent a copy.

To Book: link to follow soon

10.30am Sunday 7^th June: Meet outside St Martin's Church, High Street

Village Litter Pick

Please come along and make our village cleaner and safer for local wildlife. You will be provided with a litter picking stick, plastic bags and safety tabards. Meet at the layby below the station on the A225.

Guided walk and Eynsford in Bloom at the Space

9.30 am Wednesday 10^th June: Meet at the Space, Riverside Club, Riverside

Chalk Walk

Chalk landscape expert Guillaume will lead a short walk along the Darent valley from Eynsford to Farningham.

Chalk valleys and their associated down lands in southern England are exceptionally rich ecosystems, supporting up to 40 plant species in a single square metre. These areas are characterised by thin, nutrient-poor alkaline soils, specialised, colourful flora, and a variety of unique, often rare, butterflies.

Starting from The Space at The Riverside club, Riverside , Eynsford, Guillaume will lead a fact finding and educational walk discussing the typical look of a chalk Grassland area and hopefully encountering some rare chalk plants on the way like pyramidal, bee, man and rare early spider orchid, Kidney vetch, wild thyme, salad burnet, squinancy wort, fairy flax, carline thistle, field scabious, and viper’s bugloss.

Eynsford in Bloom will also have a table at The Space to introduce people to the chalk landscape’s flora and fauna with a game of plant sudoku.

2-4pm, Friday 12^th June: Olive Seal Hall, Pollyhaugh

GeoPoetry Workshop – Wise Words for the Earth

Workshop for adults interested in exploring ideas and writing – Booking required: £5.00. Maximum 14 places. Teas, coffee and cake/biscuits available.

The session is run by Helen Nattrass and Victoria Field

Over a two-hour session we will write to prompts inspired by chalk, flint and earth processes to create individual reflections on our beautiful Kent landscape. We will read and respond to poems and prose on geological themes. The event is open to all, and no previous writing experience is necessary, just a willingness to participate. Bring paper and something to write with.

Helen is a Library Volunteer, coordinating Wise Words for Wellbeing, and a Geologist (see was at the Channel tunnel breakthrough!). She was a participant in Earth Lines. Victoria is a Writer, Researcher and Poetry Therapist and an Associate in the Academy for Sustainable Futures at Canterbury Christ Church University.Both Helen and Victoria are Geoambassadors for the UNESCO Cross-Channel Geopark https://geoparktransmanche.org/en/

To Book: Link to be added shortly

6.30 -8.30pm Friday 12^th June: St Martin’s Church

‘Our Landscape’: Chalk under, river through, growing in the soil above

Join us for another thought provoking evening. This year we offer three different views of the valley. An evening of 3 parts: music and poetry inspired by the chalk beneath our feet, our own special river, the Darent and Tom Hart-Dykes irrepressible enthusiasm for plants. FREE, a glass of wine/soft drink provided. Donations welcome.

An introduction to our Chalk Landscape - Helen Nattress

ACT 1: Step by Step, Grain by Grain - A Walk Across Chalk and Flint

Through poetry, music and ambient sound, Victoria Field and Eduard Heyning celebrate the pilgrim paths of Kent and the iconic geology, flora and fauna that link the North Downs, the Weald and the coast. Soft chalk and hard flint come from the same deposits, and yet look and feel utterly different, one changing into the other grain by grain. As we walk a path through the landscape, we are shaped by the earth under our feet, breath by breath, step by step, and in turn, humans have shaped the Kentish landscape both quickly and slowly over the centuries. Our original poetry and musical compositions inspired by chalk and flint offer a reflective response to the deep time of geology and our precious contemporary landscape.

Dr Victoria Field is a writer and poetry therapist who has been widely published. Her latest books include a poetry collection, A Speech of Birds and a memoir of pilgrimage and marriage, Baggage: A Book of Leavings. Eduard Heyning has degrees in music and philosophy. He composes and plays clarinets and saxophones. Recent performances included the Geological Society in London, Samphire Hoe near Folkestone, and the Lilford Gallery in Canterbury.

Interval

ACT 2 – The River

Helena has begun drawing her attention to the plight of Britain's chalk streams and is working on an upcoming project created in collaboration with the river Darent itself. For her performance she will sing a mix of original songs written in response to the river as well as traditional songs that explore our human connection to rivers in a broader sense. This will be accompanied by personal reflections of her childhood growing up near the river and her experience now as a wildlife volunteer and environmentalist. .

Helena Day is a singer and songwriter living near the Darent Valley. Her soulful sound pulls influence from traditional folk as well as vocal jazz, and is deeply rooted in her natural surroundings. Her debut album 'When all the Birds Have Flown Away' centres on Britain's declining bird populations and is due for release this year. Her music has been described by BBC Radio Kent as sounding "like a fairy tale".

Helena's Social Links

ACT 3 – Gardening in a chalk landscape: Tom Hart-Dyke – Tom will talk about the plants that thrive in the chalk soils of the Darenth Valley and how the changing climate will affect the species that will do will. He will be bringing samples and his usual immense enthusiasm!

Tom was born in Kent in 1976 and his horticultural passion, nurtured by his late grandmother Mary Hart Dyke. He spent his early twenties travelling the world in search of rare orchids and plants. In 2000 he was kidnapped in the Panamanian jungle on a plant hunting expedition that went dangerously wrong. The idea for the World Garden was born in the depths of despair in the Colombian jungle. After Tom’s return home to his ancestral home of has been busy building the 'World' in his back garden at Lullingstone Castle.

Tom continues to plant hunt around the world, gathering new plants for the World Garden. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church University on 27th January 2017. Tom has authored two books - 'The Cloud Garden’ (2003) and the story behind BBC2’s popular series 'Save Lullingstone Castle', and 'Return to Lullingstone Castle', produced by Keo Films entitled 'An Englishman's Home' (2011). Both are on sale at Lullingstone.

The World Garden — Lullingstone Castle & The World Garden

Helen and Victoria are Geopark Ambassadors

1pm-4pm Saturday 13^th June: Scout Hall, Priory Lane, Eynsford

Repair Café

Bring along those much loved but no longer perfectly working items. Sit and have a chat and a cup of tea whilst our menders do their best to bring your items back to life.

We have a team that sew and darn, mechanical and electrical wizzes and bike repair.

And everything we can give longer life to cuts the waste we create and emissions we produce. We’ve already saved more than a ton of carbon …….and created quite a few smiles!

2-4pm Saturday 20^th June: St Martin’s Church, High Street, Eynsford

Gardeners Club Show

This will include exhibits relating to chalk.