Section 3
Saltwood to Lymne
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 3 Out
Saltwood to Lymne
Map: OS Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Distance/Time: 3.5 miles/2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Castle Hotel in Saltwood
Comments: This is generally easy walking with some steep climbs. Careful map reading needed in Brockhill Park with its many permissive paths. Isolated country beyond Pedlinge and a short section of roadwalking into Lympne.
With the Castle Hotel behind, cross the road towards the village hall just across to the right. Go up Rectory Lane to the left of the village hall. Soon, turn left, up Victoria Place. Go ahead on a footpath to the right of the house ahead.
At the top, cross the end of New Road, and continue in the same direction up ‘The Coppice’. Where houses end, keep forward on an enclosed path between fences.
After some way, look out for another enclosed path going off left and follow this down to a road. Cross to a footpath going alongside a playing field with a hedge and school on your right.
At the far end, reach a junction with a broad track in trees. Turn left down this track to a gate (this is the entrance to Brockhill Park. The route is confused at times in the park because of many waymarks on permissive internal paths which are not public rights of way and not on the OS map).
Through the gate, keep on downhill on the main track for some way, bearing gradually right. Where the track turns hard right, up towards a kissing gate by a fieldgate, leave the track and drop downhill, to your left, to a footbridge in the treeline at the bottom edge of the field.
Cross the bridge to a junction of tracks. Ignore the path going down to your left, and the path bearing off on the right. Go through the gate straight ahead and go steeply up the field ahead.
At a treeline go through a metal kissing gate. Continue up steps to another kissing gate. Pass through and go forward across an open field, heading to the righthand corner of a small wood. Here, in the top corner of the field, turn right through a gate by a metal fieldgate and follow the wire fence on your left towards the buildings of Pedlinge.
At the end corner, the fence turns left, towards a fieldgate in front of an old chapel. Go through the gate and on, passing the chapel on your right. Soon reach a driveway. Bear left down this to the main road by a bus stop in Pedlinge.
Carefully cross the road, slightly left, to a farm entrance, by a house opposite. This is on the Saxon Shore Way. Go up this, passing a pond on your left. Where the drive soon turns left, go straight ahead, through a gate, and walk across the field to the far left corner.
Here pass through a second gate onto a farm track. Turn right along this for some way.
At the end of the field, reach a junction with a cross track. Go straight ahead, over the open field, to a corner of woodland. Turn right here, along the edge of the wood, for 20 metres to the next corner.
Here bear left away from the wood across the open field, just left of a house, to the far corner of a very large field.
Reach a stile by a metal fieldgate. Do not cross onto a road, but bear right, across this next field, passing just to the right of a house. Look for an old stile in the hedge just in front of a small wood (there is a big tractor gap which is easier to get through). Go over to meet the wood and bear left along the field edge with the wood on your right.
Where the wood reaches a corner, go straight on across the open field, up to a corner where a wire fence meets a hedge by a stile. Do not cross but turn sharp left to follow the top edge of the field with the fence, then a hedge, on your right.
At the end of the hedge, cross a stile (currently redundant as the fence has gone) and go straight ahead, slightly uphill, across an open field, towards a small thicket of bushes and trees. Behind this is a stile leading to steps to a road.
Turn right along the road, passing a war memorial on your left. Keep on the road a short way looking for a bridleway going off left along the vehicle entrance to Lympne Castle. This is the Saxon Shore Way again.
Stay on the drive, ignoring paths off left, to go through a car park area passing the entrance to the church and castle. The road passes accommodation buildings on your left and a bistro. At the end of this building, at a slight bend left, turn right, up an asphalt pathway by a long stone wall.
At a house keep forward on a narrow, enclosed path. This eventually emerges through an old kissing gate onto a road. Turn left to the ‘County Member’ pub and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 3 Return
Lymne to Saltwood
Map: OS Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Distance/Time: 4 miles/2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the County Member pub in Lympne
Comments: There are steep climbs at either end and some road walking. Because walking across The Roughs is difficult (the signed footpath does not officially go all the way across), the towpath along the Royal Military Canal is used for some way.
With the ‘County Member’ pub on your right, walk back along the road over a drive off right, to the footpath just beyond on the right, up steps and through a kissing gate. Follow the path back down to a T-junction with a roadway at the bottom. Turn left to walk by the buildings at the top of the Lympne Castle site.
Keep on the drive, through a car park area, and on until the drive begins to bear left. Here look for a footpath off into trees on your right. Go steeply down a long flight of steps to a stile and cross into a field.
Keep on downhill, across the open field, bearing slightly left to a corner of woodland. Go forward down the bottom edge of the field with the wood on your right. In the bottom corner reach a stile.
Cross with great care onto the busy road of Lympne Hill. Turn right downhill for 100 metres. Ignore the first footpath going off left (to The Roughs) and in a short distance turn left, off the road, through a metal squeeze stile, onto a second path. Bear right on this steeply downhill.
At the bottom go through a metal kissing gate. Cross a side road called St. Mary’s Road and go on, past a house and workshop. Just before a bridge, turn left on the path alongside the Royal Military Canal (there is a cycle track first and a parallel footpath just beyond).
Stay along the canal for two miles. After a mile pass Palmarsh footbridge. Keep on until the houses of Saltwood appear.
Pass the first few houses then turn left over a wide bridge and up Green Lane Avenue. This soon turns into a footpath going steeply uphill. At the top reach a road. Turn right along it and keep on it into a dead end close.
At the very end, turn right on an enclosed footpath hidden in the corner. Follow this for some way to reach a main road.
Cross this road to a footpath opposite going steeply uphill. Go up this, ignoring exits off left into residential roads. At the very top, where the path emerges onto a road end, turn left onto an unmade bridleway.
At a Y-fork, bear right, still on the main track, steeply uphill. Keep on this track for ½ mile. Ignore a path off left and keep on up, crossing a school entrance road. Further up keep straight on at a Y-fork to eventually reach a road at the very top.
Turn right on the road to soon pass the village shop in Saltwood. A little further on is the Castle Hotel at the start of the section.
