Section 28
Coolham to Limeburners Inn
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 28 Out
Coolham to The Limeburners Inn, Newbridge, Billingshurst
Map: OS Explorer 134 Crawley & Horsham
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The Selsey Arms in Coolham
Comments: Farms, fields and forests with plenty of stiles. A little roadwalking, some boggy patches and the need to negotiate the way through new housing.
With the front of the ‘Selsey Arms’ on your left, walk south, down the B2139, away from the village centre. Walk carefully along the road for nearly ½ mile.
Pass several cottages, finally, opposite ‘Farley’s Cottage’, turn right off the road, through a wooden swing gate, onto a footpath, following the hedge on your right.
At the far side, cross a poor stile by a wooden fieldgate, and go forward to a second old stile and gateway.
Go across another field, b earing left, away from the fence on your right. Aim just left of a red brick house ahead.
Cross a stile by a wooden fieldgate, just by the red brick house, and go forward on a drive.
Keep on, to a farm ahead. By the farmhouse on your left, turn right, down a farm track, through farm outbuildings.
At the bottom, go forward, on a grassy track between ponds. Do not go up to the field ahead, but turn left, through a metal fieldgate, into a sunken meadow.
Go forward along a pleasant valley, with a small river on your left and a hedge up on your right, for 3/4/ mile.
Where the river swings left, go forward, into a thicket. Cross a stile into a field, with an old farm house at the far side.
Bear right, across the field, aiming just right of the buildings, to a stile by a metal fieldgate.
Cross the stile and a footbridge, and turn right on a drive. Follow this drive for ½ mile.
Eventually pass the Blue Idol Quaker Meeting House, on your right (this was actually set up by William Penn and is regularly open to the public).
Keep on, up the road. Just before buildings on your left, turn left, up a drive. Look for a narrow footpath sandwiched between a brick gate pillar and a wire fence.
Go along this to a corner before a wooden fieldgate. Turn right, between bushes and a wire fence.
Soon turn left, and shortly enter a field. Bear slightly left, across the field, aiming left of houses ahead.
Reach a stile and cross, to go down the side of a millennium wood, to a rusty metal fieldgate.
Go through and up, by a pond, to a further rusty fieldgate and stile. Cross and go along, passing houses on your right.
Keep forward up a grassy paddock, to a stile at the top, and emerge onto a road.
Turn right on this road for 100 metres, looking for a footpath in a hedge on the left. Cross a poor stile, and possibly a puddle, into an enclosed path.
Soon emerge into a field. Turn left up the edge with a hedge on your left, to reach several metal fieldgates. Turn right onto a clinker track.
Keep straight on in this direction for nearly a mile.
The clinker track becomes grassy and passes through gates, to join a rough, tarmac road. Keep going forward, and eventually emerge onto a public road.
Turn right for 200 metres (the road has a pavement), passing houses on the left. Look for a footpath going off right, up a private road, opposite Oak Cottage.
Follow a line of conifer trees on your left, up towards a green building. Go straight ahead as the road swings right, and pass the green building on your right. Go over a stile by a green metal fieldgate.
Go forward, over a boggy tract, into a field. Continue downhill, with a hedge on your left, to a wood at the bottom.
Enter the wood and cross a metal stile. Keep forward. Just before the far edge of the wood, reach a crossing of paths.
Turn left here, on a broad path, with a wire fence on your left. Follow this to a road.
Cross the road, and go forward, in the same direction, up Natts Lane. Pass a recreation ground on your right, and an industrial estate on the left.
Go under a railway line, to reach a T-junction with a main road. Turn right up the road (ignore the footpath off left) to reach traffic lights.
Here turn left, along Luxford Way. Soon turn right on a footpath across playing fields. Aim towards the end gable of a house at the far side.
At the far side, go left, on an enclosed path, and soon turn left again, at a junction, to walk away from the houses, between two rows of bushes.
Soon emerge onto an asphalt path and approach a new housing estate, WHERE THE PATH MAY BE DIVERTED FROM YOUR MAP.
Just before a stream, turn left. Follow the stream (now on your right), all the way around the houses, to eventually reach a new bypass road. Cross carefully and turn right, alongside the road. The path soon turns left to regain the original route. Walk away from the road, through bushes, and soon cross a stile into a field.
Follow the edge of the field with a hedge on your left, to a stile by a metal fieldgate. Continue along the field edge, with a fence on your right.
Soon reach a stile on the right. Cross and turn left, to follow the field edge and hedge on your left towards a distant road.
Bear right at the end of the field, to a stile onto the road. Turn right for a short distance to reach the ‘Limeburners’ inn and the end of the section in Newbridge.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 28 Return
The Limeburners Inn, Newbridge, Billingshurst, to Coolham
Map: OS Explorer 134 Crawley & Horsham
Distance/Time: 5.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The Limeburners Inn in Newbridge
Comments: Farms, fields and forests with plenty of stiles. This is a complex route with many twists and turns and instructions to be carefully followed. Allow plenty of time and take HiViz top and torch if walking on shorter days.
FAMILY NOTE FROM ORIGINAL WALK: got lost today for an hour and ended up walking in the dark. Went on to see Mrs Simmonds in Brighton. She is now 92, but in good spirits.
With the Limeburners Inn on your left, walk back down the road (B2133), passing a caravan park on your left.
Ignore the footpath off left, used on the outward route, and keep on along the road for some way.
As the road gradually drops downhill, and just before a house on your right, turn left, over a stile by a double metal fieldgate, into a field.
Follow the hedge on your left, down, then soon left, at a corner. Cross a stile ahead, surrounded by three fieldgates.
Enter and follow an unusual, broad track, enclosed by overarching bushes. Keep on to the very end, ignoring side paths. Cross a wobbly stile, in a broken fieldgate, into a field.
Follow the hedge on your right, towards works ahead. At the end of the field, cross a stile, and keep forward on a narrow path, with a wire fence on your left.
At a corner, turn left, to keep along the wire fence, with a stream down on your right. At the end, emerge onto a track, by a concrete bridge. Turn right, over the bridge, then right again, to a path going into woods.
Go ahead with the stream now down on your right.
At a point where the wire fence on the other side of the stream ends, bear left, on a path uphill, diagonally across the wood to the top edge (it may be difficult to find this path; several paths bear diagonally uphill through the woods).
A path runs all the way along the top edge of the wood. AT WHATEVER POINT THIS PATH IS REACHED, turn left on it, and follow it all the way to the far top corner of the wood (do not descend again), by a holly bush.
Here, turn right, over a stile, out of the wood and into a field.
Follow the hedge on your left for a short distance, to a stile in the hedge on the left. Cross into a field, and go forward with a hedge on your right.
Keep ahead to the far end of the field, and reach a road. Turn left on a raised path, which descends to the roadside.
Carefully cross the road, to steps in the bank, up to a stile into a field. Over this, go diagonally right, uphill, to a stile by a wooden fieldgate.
Cross, and turn left, on a clinker track, with a hedge on your right and a house behind.
Keep forward, onto a gravel track, with a conifer hedge on your left, then on, over a stile by a metal fieldgate, to cross a bridge over a railway line.
Cross a stile at far side, into a field. Keep forward with a hedge on your left. Go for some distance, passing through a homemade kissing gate, and then past a cottage, to cross a stile into a field ahead.
Turn right, and soon enter a large sloping field. Go on down with a hedge on your right, to the very bottom corner.
Go through a kissing gate, and turn left, along a field edge, with trees on your left, to a hedge ahead.
Here, turn right, to follow a hedge on your left. At the bottom cross a footbridge and stile, into a further field.
There is a meeting of ways here. Turn left, to soon leave the field, onto a wide, enclosed, grassy track, with woods on your right.
Soon the track emerges into a field. Follow the hedge on your left, and at the corner ahead, cross a stile onto a drive by a house.
Go forward, up the drive, to emerge onto a road.
Turn left, up the road, for a few metres, then right, over a metal fieldgate, into a field.
Go over the centre of this field, to a stile, and cross into a further field. Go on, along the field edge, with a hedge on your left, to the far corner.
Cross a stile by an old metal fieldgate, and turn sharp left, up an enclosed path, towards farm buildings.
Soon reach a drive. Turn immediately right, into the entrance gates of South House Farm.
Just before the house, turn left, up the grass, to a gate into a field.
Turn right, with a hedge on your right. At the end of the field, cross a gated stile (!), and turn right.
Soon reach a field corner with a stile (ignore a left turn). Cross the stile and go on, downhill, with a hedge on your right.
Cross another stile, and go on with the hedge still on your right, towards sheds.
Soon reach a stile in the hedge on your right. Cross this and a footbridge, then a further stile.
Turn immediately left, down the field, past the sheds on your left, then bear diagonally right, across to a metal fieldgate. Go through, and keep on in the same direction, to the far corner.
Cross a stile and ditch, and emerge at the bottom of a rising pasture. Turn left, along a path with a hedge on your left.
Soon cross a stile into an extensive garden area. Keep ahead, past a house, onto a drive. Stay on this for some way, to a road.
Turn right, uphill. Just over the brow of the hill, look for a footpath and stile on your left, by a postbox. Cross the stile and go downhill, with a fence on your right, then a hedge.
On reaching an open space, by power lines, bear left, to follow a wire fence on your left.
Soon cross a piped stream and a stile, into a rising field. Go up by power lines, to a stile and footbridge in the hedge at the far side.
Keep forward, past horse paddocks on your left, and a house on the right. Reach a stile, by a gate and cross to a road at Old Farm House.
Turn right on the road, which passes the farmhouse on your right, and soon becomes a grassy bridlepath, going into woods. Pass a pond on your right.
Soon the path begins to rise. After some distance, near the top, go off left on a clear bridlepath, to a gate.
Go through and onto a wide grassy ride, along the edge of a field, with a hedge on your left. There are farm buildings ahead.
On reaching the buildings, go forward to the very end to meet a drive. Turn left on the drive, to Goring Lee, down through an avenue of trees.
At a junction, with a farmhouse on your left and a red brick house over on your right, turn right, over a stile, by a fieldgate. This is the route used on the outward leg of the ramble.
Walk back across two fields, with a hedge on your left, to emerge through a swing gate onto a busy road.
Turn left, for some way, back to the Selsey Arms, at the road junction in the middle of Coolham, and the start of the section.
