Section 5
Burmarsh to Newchurch
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 5 Out
Burmarsh to Newchurch
Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh (138 needed for Burmarsh village)
Distance/Time: 3 miles/ 2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ pub in Burmarsh village. On road parking in the village.
Comments: A flat walk across extensive fields on former marshland; great views, great light, many bridges, many stiles. Easy walking unless wet or overgrown with crops or brambles. This is isolated country. There is no shelter from rain or intense sun so it is vital to carry appropriate clothing and provisions. Take supplies for refreshment as the pub at Newchurch has closed and there is no regular shop. There is a café/restaurant with limited opening from Wednesday to Sunday. The churches at Burmarsh and Newchurch are interesting and well worth time to visit.
With the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ on your right, go up Church Road, past the parish church (usually open for visiting). Stay on the road as it bears left. Opposite the last house on the left, look for a stile in the hedge on your right.
Cross into a pasture and the start of two paths. Take the one on your left, which runs parallel to the road on your left. Cross the pasture to a footbridge and continue to a second.
Over this bear slightly right, away from the road, to the far side of the field, just right of the nearest house in trees ahead. At the foot of the garden of this house is a footbridge.
Over this follow the fence on your right to a metal hurdle. Step over this and bear diagonally left across to a footbridge, just right of a willow tree.
Cross the bridge and bear slightly left across a field aiming for telephone wires. Cross a footbridge at the far side onto a road.
Over the road, go forward on another footpath across a large field. Aim between a farm on your left and a white house on your right.
A third of a way across the field, cross a footbridge. Keep on in the same direction to a wooden footbridge, just left of two solitary bushes.
Over this, bear left, towards farm buildings, but aim just right of them to a footbridge through the hedge, onto a road. Go straight across to a footbridge opposite.
In the field ahead, bear left, to a substantial power cable pole at the far side. By this, cross a footbridge and bear right across a field, aiming for a distant white house.
Reach and cross a further footbridge (look for farm buildings ahead, ignore the white house which is now over on your right). Go straight ahead across the field, just right of the farm buildings.
Across this field find yet another footbridge. Over this continue across a field towards a telegraph pole at the end of a hedge in the far corner. Here there is a footbridge out to a road.
Turn right on the road for a short distance, passing a turning on the right and a white cottage, also on the right. Look for a footpath on your left. Join it to cross a field, diagonally, heading just left of the tallest tree in the hedgerow ahead (there is a pylon in the far distance and a church tower just visible to the left).
Cross into the next field and keep on in the same diagonal direction, to a corner of hedgerow concealing a footbridge. Over this the path meets a broad green lane. Turn right on this bridleway.
As you go along, look for a footpath going off left through a gate and over a footbridge into a field. Cross this field, aiming just right of a church tower. Reach a metal pedestrian gate in the fence ahead.
Go through this and five other gates as you continue in the same direction crossing several paddocks and pastures. Reach a final footbridge to emerge onto the road in Newchurch (just opposite the house that was once the pub).
Turn left along the road, passing the restaurant. Look out for Mill Lane off left as this is the start of the return section if making the circular walk. Stay on the road as it winds through the village to reach the church with a little nature reserve in front.
This is the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 5 Return
Newchurch to Burmarsh
Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh (138 needed for Burmarsh village)
Distance/Time: 3 miles/ 2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the medieval parish church in Newchurch. On road parking in the village.
Comments: Quiet and isolated country with open views. No shelter so be prepared for all types of weather. Keep an eye on the map as the paths constantly cross large open pastures.
With the church on your right, return back down the road through the village, to Mill Lane on your right, just before the end of housing on your right. Turn right down this lane.
At the end of the lane, reach Mill House. On entering the garden, by the base of the old windmill, turn right through a gap by a gate, and then left along the edge of a garden to a stile down in a ditch in a hedge.
Over this, go ahead along a field edge with a ditch on your left, for ¼ mile, to a footbridge on your left.
Cross in to a field. Walk away from ditch, bearing slightly right across the open field, under power lines, to a post and footbridge at the far side.
Cross this and continue in the same direction towards a metal pedestrian gate and a further footbridge in the hedge at the far side. Enter a vast field.
Keep on across the centre of this field heading for a small gap in a dense hedge at the far side (do not aim for farm buildings on the left in the distance).
On reaching the gap, cross a footbridge. In the next field, bear slightly right to the far corner and out to a road.
Go straight over and into a field via a decrepit stile by double metal fieldgates. Keep ahead across the field to a corner of a hedge, then on, with a hedge and ditch on your right, for some way.
Reach a junction of ditches. Ignore the farm bridge off right and continue forward over another wide farm bridge. Soon bear right over a small ditch, into the corner of a vast field. Go diagonally left across the middle aiming for a wooden footbridge in midfield.
Before reaching the footbridge the path meets the corner of a ditch. Keep on to the footbridge with the ditch on your right. Do not cross the footbridge but keep on past it with the ditch still on your right. Keep on to the very end of the field ignoring a path off right to a footbridge.
At the end corner of the field, at a T-junction with a cross ditch, turn left on a farm track, towards the green painted buildings of Chapel Cottage Farm. Halfway down, follow the track as it swings right over the ditch then left towards the farm again. Stay on it to go through the farm buildings to reach a road.
Turn left on the road for some way, eventually turning right into Orgarswick Farm Lane. Follow this for ½ mile to reach Sankey Cottage on your right.
Just past this house, turn left onto a green farm track. Count the ditches coming in on your right as you go along.
At the second ditch the track crosses a farm bridge. Immediately bear right off the track and cross a large field aiming to the right of Burmarsh village in the distance ahead (do not aim directly for the church or the buildings although this is tempting).
At the far side of the field is a wooden footbridge. Cross this and keep forward, this time aiming for the village. At a corner, ignore a playing field on your left. Continue across the next field parallel with gardens over in your left.
Look for a footbridge going left into the houses to reach a green surrounded by an estate of houses.
Go forward to a road and turn right. At a T-junction turn left to the village centre, the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ and the start of the section.
