Section 22
Chailey to Wivelsfield
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 22 Out
Chailey to Wivelsfield
Map: OS Explorer 122 Brighton & Hove
Distance/Time: 6 miles/3 hours
Start: The main road in Chailey, where section 21 emerged
Comments: Pleasant countryside and reasonable paths. Many stiles as usual. Some heritage at the start with Chailey church and the Moat house. Take care with slightly more complicated instructions between Wivelsfield Green and Wivelsfield. THE PUB AT WIVELSFIELD IS CURRENTLY CLOSED SO TAKE PROVISIONS. The Cock Inn on the road through Wivelsfield Green, just north of this route is currently open. As is the Plough Inn on the road through Hatton Green on the return.
Cross the main road in Chailey and go forward, over a little green, to a driveway. Keep ahead on this, to pass the church on your left.
Follow the drive a sit bears right, past a house, and continues as a private road to Chailey Moat. Just before the entrance gates, immediately past a pond on your left, turn left on a grassy track by chestnut trees. Reach a wooden fieldgate and a stile.
Cross, and turn sharp right. Soon reach a footbridge between lakes. Cross and go forward to a Y-fork by an aged oak. Turn left, upto a metal fieldgate, and enter a wood.
On emerging, bear right, keeping to the edge of the wood for a short distance. Soon reach a junction with a path going back into the wood. Here turn left, away from the wood, and walk across the meadow under power lines, to a metal fieldgate.
Go through this, to join a farm track. Pass ponds to your right and left, then reach a stile, on your right, at the edge of the wood.
Cross the stile, into a field, and go diagonally across the centre of the field, under power lines again. At the far side cross a stile into a pasture.
Continue in the same direction (ignore a path going sharp right), across the pasture, to the far opposite corner.
Cross a stile, into woods. Go over a broad path and bear right, into a field, through a metal fieldgate (ignore the footbridge under a chestnut tree).
In the field, bear right, down to a ditch, and turn left (do not try and cross a ruined footbridge). Follow the ditch to the next corner of the field and turn right, over a wide farm bridge, and cross to the end of a hedgerow.
Go forward, along with the hedge on your right, all the way to a stile into a wood, at the far end.
Continue through the wood and emerge at a stile. Cross into the field ahead and keep forward across it, to a small stile in a wire fence. Over this, bear right, to trees and walk along the edge of the field, with trees on your right, to a stile in the corner ahead.
Cross into an enclosed path, which soon emerges, over a stile, into a field. Go ahead, by a hedge on your left, to a stile at the far side. Exit onto a road at Lumberpits.
Turn left along the road a few paces. Look for a concealed stile in the hedge on your right.
Cross into a neglected area of tree planting. Follow the overgrown path. Gradually swing right to a stile. Over this continue forward, along the side of a line of oak trees on your right, to eventually reach a stile into a large hay meadow.
Go straight across to the treeline at the far side.
Cross a stile into a corner of woodland, then a footbridge, and on, into a field ahead.
Go up the field, bearing slightly right, to the very top, where the treelines on either side of the field, come to a meeting point. Here, join a track, through a belt of woodland, and emerge into a field.
Go forward, uphill, slightly right, towards a house with red tile-hanging. Cross a stile, in front of the house and turn left, up a grassy path (by chickens).
Soon bear right, up and across a grassy paddock, to a stile into a further paddock (currently with donkeys), and a stile in the top left corner.
Cross into a field, and go along by the fence on your right. Where this ends, go forward, downhill, to a stile hidden in the far bottom corner.
Cross into a neglected meadow, and bear right, along with a wire fence on your left, to a rusty, metal fieldgate ahead.
Go through this and cross a track, to an overgrown stile, into the sloping field opposite. Go downhill with a line of trees on your left, to enter a wood at the bottom.
Go forward in the wood to a crossing of paths. Turn left, onto a bridleway, and keep along this, all the way to a road (South Road), by a house at the end.
Turn left on the road, a short distance, then turn right, on a bridleway, on a wide farm track. Follow this in a straight line, for half a mile, passing Old Barn, midway. At first as a new, gravel roadway, then through trees, and finally, as an entrance drive, out onto a road (Hundred Acre Lane).
Turn right on the road. In 50 metres look for a footpath going off left into woods (West Wood), through a swing gate.
Enter the woods and soon swing gently right. At a Y-fork, bear left on a clear beaten track, and keep on, in a generally diagonally left direction, downhill, across the wood.
Halfway down, keep diagonally across an area used by bikers, and meet another track at a junction.
Turn left on this, and continue down, to a ditch at the lowest part of the wood. Ignore a gateway into a field on your right. Cross the ditch and turn right, still in the wood, to go down to a final corner of woods by a holly bush.
Go forward into a rough meadow with a house over on your left. Keep straight ahead, following the hedge on your right. Eventually cross a footbridge onto a road.
Turn left along the road. At the end, go slightly left, on a tarmac bridlepath. Pass houses on your right, as the drive enters Ditchling Common Country Park.
At the end of a concrete section of the drive, go forward over a low pole barrier (ignore a footpath off right). Keep on the bridlepath as it winds through woods.
At the far end (announced by speeding traffic noise), look for a narrow footpath going off right, with a building just to be glimpsed at the far end.
Go up here and immediately arrive at a bend on the main road and the site of the former Royal Oak pub in Wivelsfield and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 22 Return
Wivelsfield to Chailey
Map: OS Explorer 122 Brighton & Hove
Distance/Time: 6 miles/3 hours
Start: The former Royal Oak in Wivelsfield
Comments: Farms, fields and forests with plenty of stiles. If walking through ferns check afterwards for ticks; Lyme Disease is more prevalent nowadays. The Plough Inn in Hatton’s Green, just east of the route, is currently open.
The section ended at the main road in Wivelsfield and the site of the former Royal Oak pub. There is a significant bend in the road here as it bends south.
At the point where you emerged onto the road, go back down the narrow footpath here (this is the path which ended the outward route). In a short distance, cross over the bridlepath and go straight on, to a stile into a field.
Go up the field to a corner of Pasture Wood. Continue, with the woodland on your left, up to the top corner of the field by a barricade of old fieldgates and hurdles. Pass through into a broad, grassy way. At the far end, cross a stile and go forward to cross a driveway, to a metal swing gate.
Keep forward, with trees on your left. Where the trees end, go on downhill with a hedge on your left, to a stile by a metal fieldgate at the bottom.
Cross a concrete bridge and keep forward on a track by trees on the left. Go uphill, and reach a junction with a farm road, by buildings.
Turn left along this farm road, passing a barn on your left, and soon enter a field. Go down to a belt of woodland. Pass through this and turn right, through a gap in a hedge, to a further field.
Go diagonally left, up a rising field, to a stile into woods at the far side. Turn right on a bridlepath for a short distance, then turn left on a footpath, up to a stile at the edge of the wood.
Cross to a small stile, on your left, into the rough field ahead, which includes new tree planting.
Over the stile is a feint path, which bears left across the field, generally parallel, then slightly diverging, from the treeline on your left.
There is a similar, small stile, in the wire fence at the far side (the OS map shows this path actually going diagonally right, across the field). Cross the small stile, onto a broad grassy way (ignore the stile opposite leading to a road), and turn right on the grassy way.
Walk along with a hedge and trees on your left and a wire fence on your right.
After some way, look for a stile on your left and cross, into a field. Follow the hedge and trees on your left, down to a road.
Cross straight over this road, to a stile into a pasture. Go diagonally left, down under power lines, to a stile in the far corner.
Cross a garden, bearing diagonally left, passing a house on your right, to a stile behind a willow tree.
Cross in to a sheep pasture, and bear right, across to a further stile. From this, continue in a straight line to the next stile in a wire fence.
Go forward again to the next stile, and then downhill, keeping right of a lone tree, to a stile and footbridge in the hedge below.
Cross and go up a small triangle of land, to a stile at the top. Cross into a large pasture. Go forward, bearing left of a large barn, to a stile by an old fieldgate.
Keep forward, passing the barn on your right, to a further stile, where footpaths cross. Continue towards a white house, stay by the hedge on your left all the way down the field.
Keep by the hedge, heading left of the white house, to a stile in the far left corner of the field.
Cross, to an enclosed path, passing the house on your right. Keep forward, through trees, to the end of a house ahead. Veer right , then left, onto the approach drive, and go down to a road.
Cross to a stile opposite, and go down to a stile by a fieldgate, at the bottom. Emerge onto a road.
Turn right, gently uphill on the road for ¼ mile. Ignore the first stile going off left. At the top of the hill, just past a house on your left and by Lentridge Farm, turn left over a stile, and go down by a hedge on your left. Where the hedge ends, bear left, across to a metal fieldgate, in the far corner.
Go through the gate and follow the hedge on your left, to a corner.
Go through a gateway and bear left, diagonally across a field, to a gateway at the bottom corner. Pass through this and follow the hedge on your right, to a stile onto a road at Hatton’s Green.
Turn right on this road, looking for a bridlepath going off left. Join this path.
Soon reach two footbridges. Turn right on the narrow footbridge, into an enclosed path. Cross a stile at the end into a field. Follow the hedge on your left, down to a corner, and on through a gateway.
Keep straight on, uphill, to a squeeze stile at the top. Cross a concrete farm road, to a second stile, then on across the next, small, field. Cross a footbridge by a lone tree, then on across the next field to the left end of woodland ahead. Cross a footbridge, into a VERY OVERGROWN PATH IN FERNS.
After 20 metres, this thins out to an easy walk, along by the edge of a wood, with a wire fence on your right.
Cross a stile into a wooded area. Cross a rough track and go forward on a feint path, through brambles, to a stile into a field. Keep forward, along with a hedge on your left. There is a large farm over on your right in the distance.
Keep along the hedge, passing a gateway and skirting a pond hidden in the hedge. Bear left, upto a corner and a metal fieldgate.
Cross this and turn right, on a feint path, over a rough area, upto a rusty fieldgate. This is now at the back of the farm buildings. Go forward, with buildings on your right, to the farm entrance drive. Turn left up the drive.
On reaching a new house on the right, turn left on another gravel track. Go along for ½ mile, entering woodland.
Where a further gravel drive comes in from the right, turn sharp right onto this. Follow it for some way, out onto a main road, the A275 in South Street.
Turn left along the main road, to the first road going off right (called Markstakes Lane). Turn along it. In 100 metres, look for a concealed path going to a stile on your left. Cross into a field and walk up, to a gap in the fence on your left. Turn left, across the field on the left to enter woodland at the far side.
Do not go out onto a road, but turn right on a narrow path through woodland, parallel with the road. Keep up to a stile which emerges at a road junction with Cinder Hill.
Carefully cross to the site of the old Five Bells pub.
To return to the starting point, keep on up the road and in 200 metres, return to the green and church in Chailey.
