Section 17
Bodle Street Green to Cowbeech
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 17 Out
Bodle Street Green to Cowbeech
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings and Bexhill
Distance/Time: 3 miles/2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the site of the former White Horse pub at Bodle Street Green. Unfortunately it is currently closed. There is village hall car park opposite.
Comments: This is not a long walk and has some interesting and varied sections. However, the waymarking is patchy, the ground boggy in places and there are many stiles. The route through Hole Farm needs careful negotiating and the section beyond is on very feint paths. Allow plenty of time and make frequent reference to the maps. The Merrie Harriers at Cowbeech is not open on Monday or Tuesday.
Facing the front of the White Horse Inn, go up the road on the left, passing along the side of the inn, on your right. This is the road used on the previous section and returns to the white chapel.
Pass the chapel on your right and keep on up the road, soon passing a side road on your left.
As you pass houses on your left, look out, on the left, for a vehicle drive to ‘The Old Barn’. There is a pond on the left here but no waymark.
Go down the short drive, passing houses on the right, to a metal fieldgate. Go through to a boggy field and bear right to follow the hedge on your right to the far corner and another metal fieldgate by a pond. Go ahead on a grassy track.
At the end go through a further metal fieldgate and cross the top of a narrow pasture to a concealed stile. Over this skirt the top of a wood on your left.
Now head downhill, between (or around) gorse bushes, towards a distant farmhouse. Keep on down to the lowest, furthest point of the field (ignore a metal swing gate off left) to a stile. Cross this to go on downhill through woods.
Keep ahead in a dank and gloomy valley to cross a footbridge then up steps to a rough area. Finally emerge through a metal fieldgate onto a drive at Hole Farm.
Turn right, passing a pond on your left, up the entrance to the farm. On approaching the farm buildings, notice a single storey block of redbrick converted stables. Go along the front of these – they will be on your right.
At the end look for a stile on your right by a metal fieldgate. Go on across the edge of a pasture to a second stile in the hedge leading to a large field.
Bear slightly left, down and across this field to a metal fieldgate in the opposite hedge (no waymarks here). Go through into a further field and follow the trees and hedge on your left to another fieldgate at the far end.
Go through and bear slightly left across to a further fieldgate, with a metal swing gate alongside, leading onto a concrete drive.
Bear left, down the drive, to another fieldgate across the drive. Do not go through. Turn left, off the drive, onto a grassy footpath through trees and bushes, bearing left across to a metal fieldgate.
Go through and on down the field to the far bottom corner and a wooden footbridge (ignore an old concrete farm bridge over on your right).
Cross the footbridge and turn right on a narrow path through a wooded area, roughly by a stream over on the right. Reach a home-made wooden swing gate close by the stream.
Go through and continue ahead, now close by the stream on your right for a good distance. The path through the trees is leafy and very feint but it is there.
Eventually reach another home-made swing gate and go through. Continue as before, alongside the stream, for a short distance. The path is even feinter and struggles up a bank to emerge onto a road. Go right on the road and immediately left, across to a stile.
Cross and turn left up rough steps in a bank, to a stile into a field. Go straight up the field, bearing just right of buildings ahead.
Cross a stile by a wooden fieldgate with a pond on your left. Now bear diagonally right across a large field to the very far corner, passing a curving hedge on your right. Keep over towards trees. Reach a stile in the far right corner.
Cross the stile and keep ahead with a hedge on your right, over several stiles and crossing pastures and paddocks.
At a junction of paths by a lone tree, cross a stile into the field ahead. Bear slightly right across this large pasture to a gap in the hedge at the far side. There is a smashed stile and short plank bridge here.
Go through the gap to a further large field and bear diagonally right across to the far corner; there is a collapsed farm building here. Exit onto a road.
Turn right along the road into Cowbeech village and the ‘Merrie Harriers’ pub at the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 17 Return
Cowbeech to Bodle Street Green
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings and Bexhill
Distance/Time: 3 miles/2 hours
Start: The walk starts from Merrie Harriers in Cowbeech.
Comments: Some road walking at the start along quiet country lanes. Many stiles to cross, not all easy. The walking is mostly on pasture in hilly country which also provides some good views.
Leave the Merrie Harriers and return back up the road used at the end of the outward section. At the first, righthand, bend ignore the footpath used on the outward route and stay on the road. Follow it around a left bend, then keep straight on, ignoring a road off right.
Eventually pass another road off right, in front of a house. Stay on the original road as it bears left, gently downhill, looking for a metal fieldgate in the hedge on your right (before reaching a house ahead on the left).
Go through the gate and cross the centre of the field ahead to a stile in the far hedge. In the next field cross to the far left corner, basically following the power lines on the left.
In the far corner, go through a wide gateway. Follow the power lines ahead, roughly parallel with the hedge on your right, to a wide gap in the next hedge.
Go through the gap and bear right up to the fence on your right. In a short distance find a stile in the fence. Cross this and go straight up the field to a stile by trees. Keep on in the same direction through young trees to emerge onto a road at Bemzell’s Farm.
Turn left on the road as it zigzags first left then right. Keep along to the buildings Beard’s Farm on your right. Look for a fieldgate on your left, opposite the farm. Go through this gate (sometimes locked) into a large pasture.
Bear diagonally right across and down the field to the far bottom right corner. Cross a stile and keep across to a stile in the hedge ahead. Continue across the next field to a stile out onto a road.
Turn left for a few metres looking for an equestrian gate in the hedge on your right. Go through into the bottom corner of a large pasture and continue along the bottom edge of the field with a hedge on your right (this might be a realignment of the path for use by horse riders as the original path seems to go through a very wet area of trees the other side of the hedge).
At the end of the field cross a footbridge into a further meadow. Bear right to follow the stream on your right to the far end of the field. Here cross left to a metal fieldgate and footbridge into a wood.
Turn right, through the woods, to a stile. Either keep ahead through the trees or go along the edge of a further marshy meadow. This is easier to follow but at the end a ditch on left will have to be crossed. Continue in the same direction through the woods on a feint path.
Almost immediately reach a junction of paths. Ignore the path continuing straight ahead and turn left, steeply uphill, to a stile.
Cross and bear diagonally left, uphill across the field to a stile in a wire fence. Keep on to the very top corner. Find a stile in the hedge on the left and cross to a further pasture.
Bear right, uphill again, to a lightweight double stile in a wire fence. Cross and bear left across the field ahead, passing a metal fieldgate over on your left. Reach the far corner of the field by a road.
Cross left over a stile and follow the hedge and road on your right, to a further stile out onto the road.
Turn left along the road to return to the former White Horse Inn at Bodle Street Green and the start of the section.
