Section 11
Pett to Three Oaks
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 11 Out
Pett to Three Oaks
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings and Bexhill
Distance/Time: 2.5 miles/ 1 ½ hours
Start: The walk starts from the Two Sawyers pub in Pett there is parking here, but as usual, it is good practice to make use of the facilities after the walk.
Comments: This is a fairly short section as in wet weather or winter months the paths and fields will be very muddy and slow going. Well fitting wellington boots would make sense, even better with walking poles. There are ten stiles on this section, several of them in poor condition; occasionally adjacent fieldgates are open to ease the pain. The terrain is a mixture of hills, woods and fields. There is a final section of road walking on a quiet country road. Do find time to visit medieval Guestling Church. Excellent pub at Three Oaks with lunchtime food.
Facing the main road with the Two Sawyers behind, turn left a few paces, to reach the entrance drive to the Parish Hall. Turn left, down this drive. At the end of a short row of trees on your left, and before reaching the hall, look for a stile on your left, by a gate, into a field. Cross and go diagonally left, down the field, to a gap into woods and a footbridge.
Enter the woods and follow the obvious path to a road. Cross the road to a kissing gate leading into more woodland.
Go straight ahead, away from the road, to follow a wide beaten path, up, through the wood, ignoring all paths off left and right.
Soon the path begins to drop gently downhill, bearing slightly right. Rather incongruously, pass a single manhole cover and reach a clearing resulting from woodland management.
Go forward towards the edge of woods ahe and reach two more manhole covers. Turn left between them and continue downhill on a rutted track.
Soon a path goes off left on a 1066 Walk. Ignore this and keep on downhill for some way.
Cross a stream and pass through a metal kissing gate to exit the woods.
Keep ahead, up a field, parallel with the hedge on your left, towards trees on the hilltop and distant power lines. Skirt the woods and bear left towards historic Guestling Parish Church. Go through a kissing gate and a second wooden gate into the churchyard.
Go on past the church – well worth a visit – and out through the lychgate (with interesting coffin rest) at the far side. Ignore the path immediately opposite, instead turn left down to a public road.
Turn left, downhill, on the road for just a few paces. Look for a footpath up a bank on your right. Go up the bank to a gate into a field.
In this large open field, go forward, slightly left, gradually away from the hedge on your right. Keep to the higher part of the field; do not drop down left. Over the brow of the hill, continue gently down, towards Guestling village in the valley on the left.
The path curves down to exit, through the hedge, onto a main road, opposite a school. Turn left along the pavement into the village, sadly the pub ahead is closed.
On reaching a side road coming in from your left, turn right and, with care cross the main road. Almost opposite, find the drive to Lower Fraysland Farm going down, away from the main road.
Go down the drive and over a stile by a gate. Pass farm buildings, to reach a further stile, by a gate into a field. Go down the field with a hedge on your right.
Halfway along reach a metal fieldgate, stile and sleeper bridge in the hedge. Turn right, over these, into the neighbouring field. Immediately turn left, to continue along with the hedge now on your left.
Reach a stile in the corner ahead (currently in very poor condition, but there is a gateway up on your right if necessary). Cross and keep on down the large field ahead, still with a hedge on your left.
At the end of the field, turn left in the corner, over a stile by an old metal fieldgate once painted yellow. Bear left, uphill, to a further fieldgate and stile (also in poor condition) and enter a new field.
Bear slightly right, to go straight across the centre of this field, parallel but some distance from the hedge on your left, to a stile going into woods at the far side.
Enter the woods and go forward on a pleasant path, finally exiting, via a footbridge, up, into a pasture (currently horse paddocks).
Bear right, across to a stile, leading to a road, with a railway bridge beyond. Turn right, under the railway bridge and stay on the road for some way to a junction, by Three Oaks Station.
Turn right, to cross the railway, then stay on the road, to reach the pub at Three Oaks and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 11 Return
Three Oaks to Pett
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings and Bexhill
Distance/Time: 3 miles/ 2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Three Oaks pub
Comments: This return is a fairly short section as in wet weather or winter months mud makes the going muddy and heavy. Some road walking to start on a quiet country lane, then footpaths all the way back with many stiles and a stiff climb at the end. This is quiet countryside with some pleasant views.
From the Three Oaks pub, go back down the road to the railway. Turn left on the road used on the outward section. Keep on down, to pass under the railway bridge. Stay on the road for another ¼ mile, ignoring a footpath off left halfway along.
Reach a junction with a road coming in, under the railway, from the right. Here, turn left and go uphill, to soon pass Rock Farm. Continue past the entrance to Rock Farm and go a short distance further on.
Look for an asphalt entrance on your left. Turn into it, to be faced by four entrance gates. Almost straight ahead is a wooden fieldgate (actually second from the left). Hidden behind a tree on the left of the gate is a stile. Cross and go forward down a grassy track, then continue on up between fences to the edge of a wood.
Do not enter the wood on the path straight ahead, but drop down to the left on a rough track going along the side of the wood.
Keep on this track, passing the wood, and finally crossing a clearing in trees to end up at a wooden kissing gate by several metal fieldgates.
Go through up into a large field. Keep forward, straight across the centre of the field, towards trees at the far side. The trees at the far side are not in a straight line, but have a zig-zag in the middle.
In the corner of this zig-zag is a wooden kissing gate leading into the woods. Go forward into the wood on a clear path.
At the far side, keep forward on an enclosed path, which emerges, between houses, onto a main road. Turn uphill on the pavement.
On reaching an entrance on your right (currently to Buckswood School), turn left to cross the main road. Opposite is a stile in the hedge. Cross and go up the field towards a house at the far end.
Just before this building, go tight up to the hedge on your left and into a corner with a stile. Cross to a narrow, enclosed path which soon leads to a road.
Cross the road to a path opposite, also narrow and enclosed. Drop down to a kissing gate giving onto a sloping pasture, currently a horse paddock. Keep down by the hedge on your right to soon meet a drive.
Turn right, here, through a fieldgate and up past converted farm buildings. Just past the last house on the left, by a corner, turn sharp left down a narrow, enclosed path. This zig-zags first right, then left, then on downhill.
Cross a stile by a fieldgate and on, through a gap in trees, to a field. Go straight down the lefthandside of the field, to a gap in the hedge below. Cross a stream and go forward, up into a further small field.
Keep on, across to a gateway, onto a driveway. Cross to a metal kissing gate opposite. Cross a field to another metal swing gate, then on across, to yet another metal swing gate.
Through this, a 1066 Walk path bears away uphill on the left. Ignore this and go straight ahead, by a fence on your right, towards a wood. At the end of the field, cross a stile into the wood, then on and out the far side.
Go straight over the field ahead to a stile at the far side. Cross and go down steps. Again, keep straight ahead down and across a large field, to a stile, beyond power cables, in the far hedge.
Over the stile, cross a road, to a stile by a fieldgate and keep forward, up and along by trees on your left to a stile by a fieldgate.
Go on down the field ahead to another stile, by a fieldgate, onto a road. Go straight across to a footpath opposite and continue forward, passing buildings on your right to soon enter Roughter’s Wood.
Follow the path uphill through the trees. After a final steep climb, finally emerge onto a main road in Pett. The Two Sawyers pub is opposite and the start of the section.
