Section 26
Cowfold to Copsale
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 26 Out
Cowfold to Copsale
Map: OS Explorer 134 Crawley & Horsham
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The Co-op shop (formerly the Coach House pub)
Comments: Farms, fields and forests with plenty of stiles. The pub and shop in Copsale have closed so take provisions for this section. There is a village hall just beyond the site of the old Bridge House inn.
With the Co-op behind, and the roundabout in front, cross with care, to go forward, along the A272, away from the village centre.
Keep on for some distance, looking for a footpath going off right. It is opposite the last building on your left, and just after a road on your right called ‘Thornden’.
Turn right, up this footpath, which is actually on a tarmac driveway. Where the drive ends, bear right, over a stile, by a metal fieldgate, onto an enclosed footpath.
Continue up this and soon enter woods. The path begins to descend on an impressive raised bank, to reach a footbridge. Cross and go forward, up the field ahead.
At the top, enter and cross, a wood, to emerge into a second field.
Turn right, along the hedgerow, down to a third field.
Bear left, diagonally across the centre of the field, to the far corner.
Leave the field between two ponds, and enter another field. Turn immediately right, up to a footbridge in the corner. Cross into the next field.
Again, go diagonally left across the centre of the field, passing trees around a pond, on your right.
At the far corner, leave the field through a wide gap, to a meeting of ways.
Turn immediately left, through another hedge gap, and walk down with the hedge on your left, to emerge onto a road by buildings.
Turn right up the road for 100 metres. Opposite a house on your right, turn left, through a brick gateway, onto an entrance drive. Keep along the drive.
Pass a house on your left, to reach an open grassy area beyond. Here, turn right, on a drive going uphill, towards power lines.
Go through stables, and on uphill and under power lines, to reach a wood ahead. Keep straight into the woods and go forward.
Soon the path begins to descend. Bear left, diagonally down through the woods, to a stile at the far side.
Cross into a sloping field, and go diagonally left, down and across, to a metal fieldgate, in the opposite far corner.
Go through this gate and a second beyond. Pass by a pond and go forward to an uphill footpath, beyond a pole barrier.
Keep uphill on this overgrown [path, crossing a stile near the top, and emerge onto a road.
(The OS map may show a path through the buildings opposite. This has been diverted, as follows)
Turn left along the road. Immediately past the last house on your right, turn right, off the road, through a metal fieldgate, onto a farm track.
Follow this, as it turns right, along the back of the houses. It soon swings away left and downhill between hedges.
On meeting a wood at the bottom, bear left to a difficult stile. Cross, to go down steps to a footbridge, and on (ignoring side paths), to the far side of the wood.
Leave the wood via a stile into a rough pasture, and walk up, aiming just right of a rather ugly house ahead.
Cross a stile by a wooden fieldgate and keep forward to a road. Turn left on this road, looking for a footpath on your right, just past the last house.
Go forward on an easy path, with a hedge on your right, for some way.
At the bottom of the field, go over a double stile, into the adjoining field. Bear slightly right, across the corner of the field, to a further stile.
Ignore a footpath off right, and keep straight ahead, with a fence over on your left.
Go steadily downhill. At the bottom, enter woods and immediately reach a T-junction with a bridleway. Turn left through a metal swing gate.
Follow the field edge beyond, with trees on your right. At the corner ahead, bear right, through a gate and over a substantial footbridge.
Now, bear left, onto an enclosed path with woods on your left.
Soon emerge, to cross a clinker track, and go on, uphill, on a grassy way, between a fence and a hedge. Halfway up, bear left, through a gap in the hedge, then right, to go on uphill again.
The track becomes a tarmac drive between buildings, eventually reaching a T-junction, with a mansion over on your right.
Go forward, over grass, to a wooden swing gate, and cross the field ahead.
Go through two more gates, ignoring cross paths, and go downhill on an enclosed path.
At the bottom, cross a footbridge, and go on up and along the edge of woods. Continue by a fence and out to a road.
Turn left on this road, into Copsale. Ignore a turning right, and keep down the road to a T-junction at the bottom. Turn right, to reach the site of the Bridge House pub, now housing, and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 26 Return
Copsale to Cowfold
Map: OS Explorer 134 Crawley & Horsham
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The housing development called ‘Bridge House’ and site of former pub.
Comments: Farms, fields and forests with plenty of stiles. Initial section on the Downs Link a track on the old railway from Guildford and Cranleigh to Shoreham.
Leave the ‘Bridge House’ housing and cross the road to a small car park. Walk up onto the old railway line, and bear left, gently downhill, away from the road. This is the Downs Link. Keep going for nearly a mile.
After some time, ignore a cross path going off into fields. Keep on the Downs Link, soon passing a wood on your left.
At the end of the woods is another cross path. Just ahead, power lines can be seen, crossing the Downs Link.
Now turn left, off the old railway line, down some steps to a stile, then up, into a field.
Turn left, along the edge of the field with trees on your left.
At the far end, go through the gap in the hedge, and over a stile, to a T-junction, in front of a tall, wire, deer fence.
Turn right, for a short distance, down by an old wooden fieldgate, and out onto a track.
Turn left and bear left, onto an enclosed track between trees and a fence. Keep along this for some way, to eventually pass farm buildings at Joles Farm, and emerge onto a road.
Turn right on the road for some way, downhill. At the bottom, pass a house entrance on your left, and immediately come to a footpath on your left.
Cross a footbridge and a stile, into a very long field. Go forward, down the middle of the field, soon passing a wood on your left.
At the end of this long field, where the wood on your left ends, there is a fence and a crossing of ways.
Go forward, over a stile by a fieldgate, into a field. Follow a garden hedge on your left. Where the hedge reaches a sharp corner, go forward, across the corner of the field, to a stile by a telegraph pole, at the far side.
Cross onto a drive. Turn right. Where the drive swings right, go straight ahead, by a metal fieldgate, between horse paddocks and conifer trees.
Pass an industrial area and keep forward on an asphalt drive, past stables on your left.
On approaching two cottages ahead, a drive goes off, uphill, on your left. Here turn RIGHT, over an open grassy area, to a metal fieldgate.
Go through, into a field, and follow the field edge, and trees on your right, to a second fieldgate.
Go through, and on, to soon reach a stile on your right. Cross this, then a footbridge and second stile, into a field. Turn left, along the field edge, with a fence on your left.
On reaching the end of the field, cross a stile on your left, and go forward on a grassy way between hedges, to emerge onto a road, by a yellow house.
Turn right on the road, uphill, for 100 metres, passing buildings on your right.
Turn left, over a stile, by an old, chained up, wooden fieldgate, onto an enclosed path.
At the end, cross a stile into the corner of a sloping field.
Bear right, straight down the side of the field, with a hedge on your right.
Go through a gap, into the field below, and bear diagonally left, across a very rough pasture, to the far opposite corner.
At this corner is a crossing of ways. Go across to a stile in the hedge ahead.
Cross the stile, and turn immediately left, up the side of the field, to soon reach a corner. Turn right, still along the edge of the field, with the hedge on your left.
At the end of the field, cross a stile and footbridge, into a further field, and keep forward, now with a hedge on your right.
Keep along the edge of this very large field. Half way along, reach a footbridge on your right, (this was crossed on the outward route. Turn right here if you wish to return through the woods; on reaching the road, turn left, back into Cowfold).
Otherwise, do not cross the footbridge, but keep forward, along the field edge, to eventually reach a stile, and cross to a busy road.
With great care, turn right on the grass verge, which unfortunately also slopes. However, in 100 metres, reach a pavement, all the way back to the Co-op in the centre of Cowfold and the start of the section.
