Robust Rambles

Section 5 Return

Small Hythe to Appledore

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

From the entrance to the Tenterden Vineyard, turn right, down the road, back along the outward route, to pass Small Hythe Place. Keep on the road over the bridge passing the footpaths turning off along the Reading Sewer. Stay on along the road until it turns sharply right.

Here go straight ahead, down to a metal fieldgate with a stile built into it. Cross and go forward, up a grassy way with a ditch on your right. This is on the High Weald Landscape Walk. Eventually reach a metal fieldgate ahead. Go through and bear slightly right, across the field ahead, to another fieldgate.

Through this, go sharp right and follow the hedge on your right, to a further fieldgate. Go through and immediately left, up by a hedge on the left. At the top of the field turn sharp right again. Soon reach a rusty fieldgate. Turn left through this and head up the field, by a beech hedge on your right, towards a house at the top.

Just before reaching the house, turn right over a footbridge in the hedge on the right and through a squeeze stile, into an enclosed path. Follow this around, up and between buildings, to emerge onto a gravel drive. Turn right, to leave the grounds of Kingsgate Farm through a gateway. Ignore a turning on the left and go forward uphill on a rough driveway. Follow this for half a mile to eventually emerge onto a public road.

Cross the road to a stile at a junction of paths. Cross into the field and turn quite sharply left. Cross the field, diverging gradually from the hedge on the left. Pass a pond and lone tree on your right. Reach a corner of a treeline on your left and keep forward, close to this treeline on the left. Eventually reach the top left corner of the field.

Hidden in the corner is a stile. Cross into the field on your left and go on along with a fence and trees on the right. At the end of the field is a further stile into a grassy area. Head across to a stile at the far side by a black bungalow and go down to a road.

Turn left up the road to a junction with a main road at The Swan pub. Turn right along the main road to eventually reach another junction, with a road coming in on your right. Go forward, passing a former pub, the ‘Ewe and Lamb’ on your left. Just before an oasthouse, turn left up an asphalt path through housing.

Where the path ends, keep forward on grass, across the back of the last buildings on the left. Enter a field through a gap and go forward, down the field, bearing slightly right, to meet woods at the bottom. Turn right along the field edge with trees on your left.

In a short way, ignore a footpath going into the wood through a narrow gap and keep on, to a wide farm gap going left through the trees, into a field on your left.

Turn right, along the field edge, with the trees now on your right. At a corner, turn left, up to the next corner. Here turn right and look for a stile hidden in the next corner. Cross and go forward, along the side of a garden, then down the back of a building. Pass a house on your left and emerge onto a road at a junction. Cross the road to go straight on, up the road opposite. Keep on this for half-a-mile, to eventually reach a T-junction with a main road.

Turn left along the main road to pass Stocks Mill on your right. At a crossroads, go straight forward, signed Stone and Appledore. Some way along, just before an isolated cottage on the left, turn left off the road over an overgrown stile across a ditch into a narrow field.

Walk up the field, bearing right, to the top right corner. Cross two stiles into a pasture and go over this, to two more stiles into a field ahead. Maynes Farmhouse is on the right. Go forward, passing a barn on the right, to a stile by two fieldgates. Through these, bear right, across the top of the farm, to another stile, by another fieldgate in a line of trees. Go through to the field beyond and bear slightly left, to a stile by a corner of a treeline. Cross into a corner of a field. Walk down the edge of the field with trees on the right and splendid views ahead. At the bottom corner, go right over two decrepit stiles and a footbridge into the pasture on the right. Follow the fence on your left, along and down the side of the pasture.

After some way, reach another stile and fieldgate, with farm buildings below. Here, turn diagonally right, across the pasture, to a stile(broken) and fieldgate in the far opposite corner. Go through and on in the same direction. Pass a corner of fence on your left and go on, to a stile into trees at the far side of the field, by a bungalow.

On reaching the stile, cross into the treeline, then over another stile, into a horse exercise area. Keep forward on an enclosed path, to a hedge in the corner. Go through a gap and a new gate, into a scrubby area (ignore a path going off right). Go across to another new gate at the far side and emerge into horse paddocks.

Go up to a fence and continue along, with the fence on your right, to a stile. Cross to an enclosed path between paddocks and soon reach a further stile into a field. Go forward, across the field, passing a pylon on your right. At the far side, go right on, into the top corner. Go left, over a stile, into the top of a wood.

Drop down to the right, to another stile into a field. The path divides here. Go diagonally left across the field to the far left corner (do not follow the poles which go too far left.).

At the far corner, go left out of the field, into the next field. Here turn quite sharply left, to cross the centre of the field, to the far left corner, at woodland. Go under telephone wires, aiming for the middle, between the two wooden telegraph poles.

Just before reaching the far corner, pass a garden and pond on the right. Cross a footbridge into the woods and turn right on a woodland path, downhill to a stile. Cross onto a gravel drive, by an old house and go down, to reach a public road.

Do not cross to the footpath opposite, but turn right on the road. In a little way, look for a hedge coming down a field on your left, to meet the road. Just past the hedge (there is a fingerpost), turn left, through a gap, into a large field. Bear diagonally right across the field, aiming for a brick-coloured(actually tile hung) cottage at the far side, to the right of a white clapperboard house in the distance. In front of the house, cross a boggy area to emerge onto a road.

Turn left along the road to soon reach the Ferry Inn. The route now follows the outward section back to Appledore. Pass the inn on your right, then cross a bridge and turn right over a stile by a fieldgate into a field. Go forward with the Reading Sewer down on your right. At the end of the field, go ahead across the next field, away from the sewer, aiming for a hill ahead.

At the far side of the field, cross a footbridge and stile and climb up the hill to the highest point. Walk along the top towards buildings. At the far side, go down a stepped stile, to a road. Go forward on the road, to return to Appledore and the start of the section.