Section 1 Return
Newchurch to Dymchurch
Walk Details
| Map | OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh |
|---|---|
| Distance/Time | 6 miles/ 3 hours |
| Start | The Village Hall, near the church in Newchurch |
| Comment | This is a long return at its best on a fine day. Many of the stiles are hidden. Most of the paths are not in evidence as they run along the edges of fields and ditches or across pasture, so keep a close eye on the map and keep looking for distant features; the spire of the church at St. Mary-in-the-Marsh is particularly useful. Long grass, especially if wet, can make the going very slow. Allow plenty of time for this return as this is an isolated area and it is easy to become lost. |
Walk Instructions
With the entrance to the village hall behind, turn right on the road and walk up to a junction with a road coming in on the right. Here turn left, off the road, onto a concrete path between houses. In a short distance cross a stile into a sheep pasture and walk straight ahead towards farm buildings. Reach another stile in mid-field. Go on to the far righthand corner of the field and cross a footbridge and stile to a road. Turn left on the road.
Pass a turning on the left then on past farm buildings. Just before a house on a bend of the road ahead, bear left into the farmyard. Walk along between the rear of the house and a concrete farm building on the left and enter a field. Walk down the field to the top righthand corner and exit onto the road over a section of tree trunk. Turn left along the road a few paces to a path on the left going over a footbridge into a field.
Go up the edge of the field with a drainage ditch on the left for 100 metres. Where the ditch goes off left, keep forward across a field, aiming just right of a house, to a footbridge in a hedge. Cross the footbridge into a pasture with a camping site beyond. Here the path divides. Bear left to a stile by a water tap. Cross and go forward on the campsite access road.
Where the road swings right go straight ahead between wooden buildings, on the left is an information hut and on the right a toilet block. In the hedge at the back, find and cross a footbridge out to a road junction.
Cross to the road opposite and go forward passing a house on the right then a farm on the left. After some 200 metres, look for a footpath going off left by a ditch and sheepfold.
Cross into a sheep pasture and bear slightly left across to a stile in mid-field. Keep on in the same direction to a footbridge at the far side. Cross into a large pasture and go ahead aiming left of the spire of St. Mary-in-the Marsh church ahead.
In mid-field, cross a footbridge and go on in the same direction with a ditch on the left. In 200 metres or so, opposite a house over on the left, find an overgrown farm bridge crossing the ditch on the left. Cross and bear sharply right, just slightly diverging from the ditch now on the right. Aim right of the church spire.
At the far side of the field, cross a footbridge in a hedge, into a field. Cross this to a stile, still aiming right of spire.
Over the stile again bear right to the opposite corner by trees and telegraph poles. Here cross a stile onto a road. Turn right along the road and keep along to pass the church on the left. Bear right on the road past the Star Inn on the left.
Immediately turn left off the road into a mown grassy area. Two paths start here. Bear left across the grass up the side of a building to the top corner. Here the path divides again. Bear diagonally left across the field passing the end of housing on the left. At the far side, cross a twisted footbridge in the hedge and go up a bank into a field. Continue ahead to a line of bushes.
Pass through a gap in these bushes and keep on across to a footbridge and out onto a road just right of old farm buildings. Cross the road to a footbridge and cross into a field.
Go forward by a wire fence towards a bushy hedge ahead. On reaching the line of bushes keep forward with bushes and a drainage ditch on the right to the end of the field. Cross a stile and footbridge and go forward in the field ahead. Slightly diverge from the field edge over on the right. At the far side cross a footbridge in the hedge and keep going with a hawthorn hedge over on the right.
At the end of the field, pass into the next field past a pond on the left. Ignore a footpath on the right and go straight ahead over a huge pasture towards distant farm buildings.
At the end of the pasture cross an old double footbridge and bear right across the next field towards distant houses and a power line. At the far side bear right to follow the Clobsden Sewer down on the left for 100 metres. Turn left over an old footbridge crossing the sewer by power lines. Go forward, directly away from the sewer. Soon reach and follow a ditch on the left out to a road.
Turn right on the road for half a mile. Pass a caravan site on the left looking for a footpath by a house on the left. Cross a stile into a field and go along the edge passing caravans on the left with a ditch on the left as well.
On reaching a cross ditch turn right, away from the caravans, for a few paces, then turn left over a farm bridge into the field ahead. Immediately turn right along the field edge to reach a hedge.
Turn left, still along the field edge, with the hedge on the right. At the next corner, go through a gap down steps to a footbridge then forward towards buildings.
At a corner ahead go forward across the open field bearing slightly right to a long footbridge. Cross to a road and turn right into Dymchurch.
Cross the railway lines and keep forward to a roundabout on the main coastal road. Turn left to return to the car park and the start of the section.
