Section 20
Laughton to Isfield
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 20 Out
Laughton to Isfield
Map: OS Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/3 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Roebuck Inn in Laughton; limited parking in the vicinity.
Comments: Typical varied countryside of woods and fields. Many stiles and paths prone to mud in wet weather. There are short sections of roadwalking. Bentley Motor Museum and Wildfowl Trust are passed and the section ends at Isfield Station on the preserved Lavender Line.
With the Roebuck Inn on your right, walk along the main road a few paces, looking for Shortgate Lane off on your right. Turn right, up the lane.
In a short distance, turn off right again on a pleasant but muddy bridlepath. Emerge at the top onto an asphalt road. Keep forward, past houses and a pond on your left.
Stay on the road as it bears left, around the top of the pond. Soon reach a junction of ways. Turn right off the road onto a rough farm track. Shortly, just before the first house on your left, turn left on a footpath.
Having passed a garden, enter a field and keep forward, with a hedge on your left, to a corner ahead. The footpath may, possibly, be blocked by a wire fence, but a section lifts out (apparently an American Gate). Continue on over a second field, to a stile by a fieldgate. Emerge onto a road.
Turn right on this road. In a short distance, opposite the second house on the right (Lyes Cottage), turn left off the road on a rough enclosed footpath, down the side of a new house, to a stile into a field.
Bear slightly diagonally right across the field, towards a house in trees (currently a wire fence runs along the line of the path). On reaching trees cross a stile and turn sharp left, on an enclosed path, by a garden (rather muddy, more a ditch than a path).
Soon reach a stile and emerge onto a road. Turn right up the road. On reaching a line of trees on your left, turn left, on a broad unmade vehicle track leading to Spences Farm.
Follow this track for some way, passing houses. Here the track becomes a wide muddy bridlepath, then back to a beaten track again.
Keep on the track around a right hand bend (ignore bridlepath off left), and continue past a pond on your right. Stay on the vehicle track between woods and on, past a caravan site on your right. Emerge on a busy main road by a former pub (currently this is the Wok Inn; a restaurant with all day bar).
Turn left along the main road (more a racetrack !). Luckily there are wide verges. In 100 metres look for a bridlepath going off right, at a wooden fieldgate.
Basically follow the hedge on your left for over a mile (however, currently, halfway along, at a fieldgate, mud and water blocked way. If so, go back a bit and get into the field on your left to pass the problem. Return to the correct side at the next gate in the hedge).
Where the hedge on your left cuts sharply away to the left, go straight ahead, over the field, almost to the top left corner. Here the path goes left, out of the field, through a metal fieldgate. However, there is a wide stream in front of it, so a gap in the hedge filled with a hurdle, may need to be scrambled over.
Once into the next field, turn right, to follow the hedge and where this ends, go on, across the open field, to a gate into woodland ahead.
The path goes straight through the wood, which is part of the Bentley Wildfowl Trust.
At the far side, go through a gate into a field. Keep ahead with a hedge on your right, through three fields. Eventually, turn right, through a gateway, and out onto a road.
A mile of roadwalking now. Turn right on the road. Soon skirt a wood on the right and reach a road junction. Keep left and continue, to pass Brockwell’s Farm on the right.
At the top, by Old Farm Cottage, ignore paths going off right and left. Instead keep forward another 100 metres to a decrepit stile on your right, by a damaged metal fieldgate.
Cross and go forwards for a short distance, then turn sharp left, to follow a hedge on your left, with a lake up on the right.
At the end, by a powerlines post, enter a field and cross to a wide gap in the hedge at the far side. Go through and on, uphill, to eventually emerge onto a very busy main road.
Cross with care and go straight ahead along the edge of a field with a hedge on your right. This is a large field. Follow the hedge to the very far end, by two metal fieldgates.
Ignore these and go ahead, through a gap, into the field ahead. Go uphill, across the centre of the field, bearing slightly left, to reach a new, metal kissing gate. This leads out onto a road.
Turn right on the road for some way. At a junction, go right, past a station, to reach the Laughing Fish pub in Isfield and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 20 Return
Isfield to Laughton
Map: OS Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/3 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Laughing Fish in Isfield; limited parking in the vicinity.
Comments: Typical varied countryside of woods and fields. Many stiles and paths prone to mud in wet weather. There are short sections of roadwalking. On the map the way looks long and straight, but there are many minor twists and turns requiring a plethora of instructions needing careful attention as you go.
From the Laughing Fish, turn back, to pass the station on your left. Reach a T-junction.
Turn right here, for a short distance. At the end of a tall conifer hedge on your left, turn left up the entrance drive to Farm Place. Pass a pond on your right.
Keep forward on the gravel track, ignoring the entrance to The Old Orchard. Soon turn right onto an enclosed, grassy track.
Ignore a stile on your left, cross a stream and go up to a stile into a field. Cross over to the far side and find a stile into a small wooded area. Here there are two stiles ahead. Cross the one on your left, into a field with power lines not too far away.
Cross the centre of the field, to a gap at the far side and go on, with a hedge on your left, to a metal fieldgate with a gap at the side and a pond on your left.
Keep along for some way, with a fence on your left, to a main road. Turn right, along a narrow verge, with great care. Reach a telephone box and letter box, at the top of the hill.
Turn left here, through a wide gateway, along an asphalt drive (no waymarks). Follow this for half a mile through woodland, passing workshops on your right halfway.
Suddenly, the drive reaches the end of the wood, with Mote Park Farm just ahead. Turn right, off the drive, through a swing gate and follow the edge of the wood to a fieldgate into a field.
Cross the centre of the field to the lefthand corner of woods at the far side. Go through another gate and continue up the far side of the wood, through two more swing gates.
The second one leads into the woods for a short way (very muddy due to horses), then emerges onto a road via a stile by a fieldgate.
Turn right on the road for a short distance, passing a house. Turn left, over a footbridge and stile by a farm gate, into a yard. Go straight ahead to walk down a wide, grassy ride, between hedges, towards a wood.
Keep on in the same direction, passing the wood on your left. Then follow a ditch on your left to a long stile in a clump of trees.
Cross, to a large field, and go diagonally left, uphill, to the top lefthand corner, at Upper Lodge Farm.
Leave the field through a gateway and turn immediately right, along by a hedge (all very rough here).
Look for a stile in the hedge on your right. Cross this onto a gravel drive in front of a new, but rather eccentric, Queen Anne style house. Turn left and follow the drive, all the way down to a main road.
Turn left for a short distance then turn right across the road to a clever stile built into a metal fieldgate. Cross and walk up the field, with a hedge on your left. At the end are two stiles ahead. Ignore the one on the left and cross the smaller one on the right, just before a metal fieldgate.
Walk up the field, past a large tree, and on, with a hedge on your left. At the top of this field, cross a stile with a pole barrier beyond, to join a bridlepath.
Turn right along the bridlepath. Just round a bend turn sharp left, through bushes, to a metal fieldgate. Go through and keep forward, by buildings on your right, and on, through a second fieldgate. Keep forward, in the same direction, to emerge onto a road.
Cross to a stile by a fieldgate. Over this, turn left and walk up the middle of the field to a stile at the far end. Cross, and walk between fish ponds, to enter a wood and wonderful woodland path.
Eventually cross a stile into a narrow, muddy path, which shortly crosses a footbridge onto a road.
Turn right and follow the road down into Laughton and the start of the section at The Roebuck Inn.
