Section 39
East Worldham to Kingsley
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 39 Out
East Worldham to Kingsley
Map: OS Explorer 133 Haslemere & Petersfield
Distance/Time: 4.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The Selborne Arms in Selborne
Comments: An enjoyable walk but expect hills. Stiles, farms and views too.
From the Three Horseshoes, cross the main road, with care, to the ‘No Through Road’ opposite, called Shelley’s Lane. Turn up here. Where the lane swings left, turn right, up a concrete farm track, passing between buildings, to a field.
Ignore a footpath off left, and continue forward, into the field for 100 metres. Just after passing under power lines, turn right on a cross path, actually the Hangers Way, following power lines to the far side of the field.
Emerge through the hedge onto a road. Cross to a rough track opposite and follow it to a gateway. Here, bear left, to the field edge, and go on, with a garden fence on your right.
At a corner, with the church over on your right, turn left, up the centre of the field, heading under power lines (keep on in this direction for nearly a mile).
At the end of the first field, go through a line of trees, crossing a sunken track, into a further field (this area is managed for game birds).
Keep on in the same direction, under more power lines. Eventually cross a concrete track, and head on towards a corner of a tall, garden beech hedge in the distance.
On reaching the hedge, keep on with the hedge on your right, to a metal kissing gate and a drive.
Cross the drive, bearing slightly left, then keep forward again, with a wire fence, then a tall stone wall, on your right.
Eventually emerge onto a road, opposite Wyck Farmhouse. Turn right, and follow the road, past a converted oast house. Beyond, by a brick wall on your right, is a Y-fork.
Bear right on a rough track, a bridleway, going downhill into woods.
At the bottom of the woods, pass through a gateway, into a small circular clearing. Go across to another gateway and onto a track enclosed between fences.
Follow the track, which becomes a path, down through woods. At the bottom corner, bear left, into the corner of a field, by a lake.
Go forward a few paces, into the next field, then turn immediately left, and follow the field edge along, passing the lake on your left. Just after the lake, reach fieldgates and a concrete bridge.
Turn left over the bridge, and go up a broad farm track, with trees on your left. Keep up this for some way. At the top of the rise, follow the track round to the right, and keep along between hedges (the one on the left being an unusual combination of willow and bay).
The track then swings sharply left. Turn off it, to the right, over a footbridge and stile, into a field.
Go diagonally left, up and across the field, under power lines, to the far opposite corner.
Cross a stile onto a road. Cross straight over, to a gap in the hedge opposite, into a field.
Bear left across this field, aiming for the gable end of a house on a hillside ahead.
Reach a footbridge and stile, and cross into a grassy paddock. Go straight up, to meet the end of a hedge.
The PROW goes to the left of this hedge, up to a stile. Cross into a field and go on, up the field edge. Pass a house on your left, then leave the field by way of the house entrance drive, up to a road.
Turn right on the road, for a short distance, looking for a stile hidden in the hedge on your right. Cross the stile and soon another one, into a narrow, overgrown path, between fences.
Keep on downhill for some way. Eventually emerge over a stile, into a field. Keep on along the field edge, for a short distance, to a gateway. Bear left through this, to reach a part concrete farm track.
Turn right on this track, downhill. Go through a gateway. Keep on along the farm track. Pass an old stile in the hedge on your right, and keep looking for another stile, a bit further along. DO NOT CROSS IT.
Here, turn quite sharply left, to cross the field to the far opposite corner, in hedges and trees.
On reaching it, leave the field, and go on in the same direction, with a hedge on your right, until reaching a corner with a tall hedge ahead.
Turn right, through a gateway, over a concrete bridge, into a clearing. At once turn left, to a stile into a rough paddock. Now, immediately turn sharp right, to a second stile on your right.
Cross this and follow the hedge and treeline on your right, along to a further stile, hidden in bushes in the far corner. This leads to steps up, and over, an old railway line.
Descend steps the other side, and bear left, through a gap, into the field on your left. Immediately turn right, and follow the hedge on your right, down to the bottom.
Cross to a stile and concrete footbridge, into a rising field.
Go up the field, and at the top corner, go forward on a wide track, between buildings, through a gateway, to reach a main road. The Cricketers Inn at Kingsley is opposite. This is the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 39 Return
Kingsley to East Worldham
Map: OS Explorer 133 Haslemere & Petersfield
Distance/Time: 4.5 miles/2.5m hours
Start: The Cricketers Inn in Kingsley
Comments: Lots of interest and variety here with old railways and huge sandpits. But also hazards such as golf courses and commons to cross with no clear paths. Allow more time than the mileage would suggest.
With The Cricketers on your right, go up the main road a few paces, past the entrance to the pub car park. Bear right, off the road, to drop down a broad track, to a public car park by a lake.
Here turn right, on a vehicle track, going between the lake on your left and the pub garden on the right.
Keep along this, past the lake, and on, ignoring paths off left.
Where two footpaths go off into the woods on your left, follow the main track off to the right, by houses on your right (ignore the track going straight on uphill).
The track reaches a house, dead ahead. Here turn left for 5 metres, then right, down a track enclosed by bushes with grass in the middle.
Keep forward, past Meadowgate Farm, to a stile, by a wooden fieldgate. Cross this to join a grassy path by power lines, between fences, with a golf course on your right.
After some way, reach a corner. Ignore a footpath off left. Stay on the enclosed path as it swings right, to continue up the side of the golf course, with trees on your left.
At a T-junction with a cross path, turn left, through a gate, to a driveway.
Bear right, across the drive, to a wooden fieldgate into a pasture, currently occupied by geese. Go diagonally across to the far opposite corner.
Here cross a concrete bridge and go through a swing gate. DO NOT GO INTO THE TREES AHEAD. Bear sharp right, around a thicket of brambles, to a stile into a field on your right.
Cross stile and turn left, to follow the fence on your left. Where this ends, go on in the same direction, across the field, to a stile at the far side. Cross and climb up onto an old railway embankment, with views of a large sandpit excavation.
Bear left, down the other side of the railway embankment, to cross a stile, into an enclosed path.
Follow this for some way, round to a stile in the hedge on your left. This leads onto Oakhanger Common (THE NEXT MILE IS VERY DIFFICULT AS THERE ARE MANY TRACKS AND NO WAYMARKS).
Cross the stile and go forward to a single storey outbuilding with a circular window. Turn right, by a pole, to a vehicle track. Go along this, away from buildings, for a short distance, to a T-junction with another vehicle track. Cross and go towards power lines.
Cross a second track and pass a large gorse bush on your left. Go forward on a path beyond the gorse bush, under power lines (the route passes a number of detached houses – always keep them on your left. Try and keep in the same general direction as set by the path behind the gorse bush, for nearly a mile).
So, keep along with open grass on your right and trees on the left. Soon reach a clearing. Go forward, bearing slightly left, into woods. Soon reach a vehicle track. Turn right on this for a few paces, then turn left, on another vehicle track.
Pass a house over on your left, then finally pass close by Heathfield House, on your left. The vehicle track swings left. Leave it and go straight ahead on a sandy path, under power lines (DO NOT LEAVE THIS TRACK as it crosses the common land for ¾ mile – ignore paths off left).
Eventually enter trees, and soon reach a small car park. Go forward to the little village green at Oakhanger.
Cross the green and the main road beyond, to Oakhanger church. Here turn right and walk away from the church, up the main road. Pass the house next to the church, and turn left, down a cul-de-sac road.
Turn right , along the back of houses, and join a grassy footpath, with a field on your left and the back of houses on your right.
The path swings up to a junction of vehicle tracks, before new houses.
Turn first left, along the drive, to Binswood Farmhouse. On reaching the farm and the lane end, go straight on, over a broken stile and footbridge, into woods. The path is feint at first (don’t be tempted by a path going off right), but soon improves.
Keep going, straight ahead, in the same direction, for ½ mile, ignoring any side paths. The path crosses three open strips, possibly firebreaks. The trees are cut back, but the undergrowth is thicker.
Approaching the far end of the wood, bear slightly left, across a clearing, to a footbridge and stile into a field. This marks a junction with the Hangers Way again, which has come up from the left.
Cross the field, bearing left, under power lines. At the far side, cross a footbridge, and go up to a kissing gate into woods.
Follow a grassy track, steeply uphill. At the top, turn left, along to another kissing gate, into a sheep pasture.
Follow a pleasant path, cut as a shelf in to the slope, downhill, to a lake. Skirt the lake, to a footbridge and kissing gate, into a rising pasture.
Bear diagonally right, uphill to a gate, just left of buildings. Emerge onto a drive. Turn right, still uphill, past a grey barn, and out on to a very busy road.
Cross with care, to the pavement opposite. Turn left, up and over the brow of the hill.
Keep on along the road, to soon reach the Three Horseshoes and the start of the section in East Worldham.
