Section 7
Ivybridge to the Woolpack Inn
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 7 Out
Ivychurch to the Woolpack Inn, Brookland
Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh
Distance/Time: 5 miles/ 3 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Bell Inn at Ivychurch
Comments: Some excellent quiet countryside and ancient Romney Marsh churches at Ivychurch, Brenzett and Brookland. Excellent pubs too, at Ivychurch and the Woolpack on the edge of Brookland (the pubs actually in the village seem to have closed). There are many stiles and footbridges, the former sometimes in poor condition. There are a couple of busy roads to cross with enormous care. In fine weather going is good with distant views. In damp, murky conditions the mud slows progress and landmarks disappear. PLEASE CARRY SECATEURS IF INTENDING TO MAKE THE RETURN SECTION.
Leave The Bell Inn in Ivychurch and cross to a kissing gate opposite. Through this gate go ahead on a grassy path by a playing field. Turn left at the end to go between fences emerging into a private close.
Turn right along the brick road to a junction at the end. Turn left on a country road and follow this as it bends left then right and goes on to pass old farm buildings.
Just after a ruined house on your right, turn right off the road into a field. Follow the hedge on your right and where this ends, keep forward along the field edge to the top corner. Cross a footbridge onto a road.
Turn left along the road for about 100 metres. Turn right on a footpath through a thicket of bushes to a footbridge. Cross into a field. Go forward, across the field, heading to the right of distant farm buildings. Reach a footbridge at the far side. Cross to a second field.
Keep on in the same direction towards Chapel Farm in the very far distance. Pass the buildings of Spring Farm on your left, and pass under power lines, midway between two poles.
10 metres beyond, a cross path is reached, although there may be no evidence of it. Turn left towards a black footpath sign pole by a tall wooden post. In the distance beyond is a busy highway.
Cross a road just in front of the posts and go on across a field to a further road. Over this road enter a field and turn sharp left to go diagonally across the corner of a field to yet another country road.
Over this cross a vast field towards a busy highway. Aim for the spire of Brenzett Church, part hidden in trees.
Find a wooden gate in the fence alongside the main road. Climb the bank – may be overgrown - to the road. Cross with great care and patience as road speeds are high.
Find at footpath at the other side leading down to a footbridge. Cross and turn immediately left along the stream to soon reach a broken stile by a section of fencing.
Cross and turn right in the pasture beyond, to walk up the edge and left around the corner at the top. Reach a fieldgate and broken stile. Cross onto a road infront of a pair of white houses with tile-hanging above.
Turn left on the road and walk along for some way, passing houses on your right, eventually reaching the entrance drive to Brenzett Church. Turn right to go up to the church.
Enter the churchyard and approach the church. Bear left to pass the church on your right. At the rear of the church is a stile. Cross the stile into a field (beware of electric fences) and turn immediately left to follow the hedge on your left. Gradually bear right away from the hedge aiming right of a house ahead, to a stile by a metal fieldgate beyond poles.
Cross onto a road. Turn left to pass the house on your right. Soon reach a footbridge on your right and cross into a cemetery. Go straight up along the hedge on your right to a footbridge at the top. Cross into a field and go straight on up to a footbridge at the top.
Cross this ivy-covered bridge into a rough area enclosed by wooden fencing. Straight ahead, the fence panel is, in fact, a gate with a heavy swing catch. Go through carefully onto a main road in Brenzett village (a gate off right along the stream bank also leads to another way onto the road).
Turn left carefully along this busy road, passing the former pub, to reach a roundabout. Cross right, to go right along King Street, past the old Post Office (all services gone here).
Immediately past the last house on your left, bear left into the corner of a field. The path goes diagonally right across the centre of the field. At the other side, meet a wide drainage ditch.
Look for a farm bridge crossing this to a stile beyond. Over this continue in the same diagonally right direction to reach a wire fence at the far side. Turn right along with the fence on your left.
Reach and cross a railway and continue through more gates along a track which soon reaches a road. Ignore a footpath off left here and go straight ahead along this road for 200 metres.
Pass pond and Sunnyside House on your left to eventually reach a metal kissing gate on your left into a field. Go diagonally right across this to a stile at the far side.
Cross to reach a busy road. Cross to a further stile at the far side into a paddock. Cross this to a wooden kissing gate out onto a road. Turn right along the road into Brookland.
Soon reach Brookland Church with its distinctive tower and just beyond, bear left down past the former pub on your left to a junction with Boarman’s Lane.
Bear left at this junction and in a few paces look for a footpath on your right. Go down this path to soon emerge on a road called Club’s Lane.
Cross to footpaths going off opposite. Bear right across field. Cross Baldwin Sewer midway and continue forward to rejoin Club Lane. Turn left on this lane a short distance to a junction.
Here turn right into Beacon Lane. Stay on this road to pass Hook House. Continue straight on passing a turning left then a turning right.
Stay forward on lane, called Hook Wall, to the Woolpack Inn and end of section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 7 Return
The Woolpack Inn to Ivybridge
Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh
Distance/Time: 5 miles/3 hours
Start: The walk starts from the Woolpack Inn
Comment: CARRY SECATEURS FOR THIS SECTION.This should be a mostly easy going and straightforward walk. There are stiles and footbridges. However, he last section into Ivychurch lacks all signage and needs careful navigation. This is helped in fine weather by aiming for Ivychurch church tower but in mist more care is needed with map and compass. THIS LONG BRIDLEWAY FORMING THE FINAL PATH BACK INTO IVYCHURCH MAY BE IMPOSSIBLE TO NEGOTIATE AT THE START DUE TO VEGETATION. IF NECESSARY FOLLOW THE ALTERNATIVE INSTRUCTIONS ALONG THE A259.
With the Woolpack Inn behind, turn left to continue up the road. Just past a residential caravan on your right, take a footpath off left, going diagonally down a bank to a fieldgate and on, into a field.
Cross the field, bearing left of a house in the distance, to a thorn bush in the top corner. Cross into the next field and aim, now right, of the house, to a stile onto a road.
Turn right, then immediately left, over a stile I to nto a field. Follow a miserable fieldedge path, with a fence, then a stream on your left, to the end of the field. Cross a footbridge into a second field. Keep straight on in the same direction, to the far fence by a power cable pole.
At the far side find a stile just left of a road corner. Cross into a large field with Brookland ahead. Go diagonally left across the centre of the field to the far opposite corner, gradually merging with a treeline on your left.
At the corner cross a stile into a horse paddock. Cross this to a road. Turn right on the road and walk along a good way, passing Boxted Lodge on the right and then a side road coming in on the left. Look out for a footpath going off through the hedge on your right by a metal fieldgate.
Cross the field aiming for a lone and leaning post at the far side. Here cross an old brick bridge into the field beyond.
Ignoring a path off sharp left, go on, almost straight forward, across the field, bearing a touch left, to find a footbridge in the hedge ahead. Cross the bridge and go forward again. At first there is a hedge and stream on your left, then continue on across the open field to a tractor gap onto a narrow rough road.
This is Tillery Lane. Turn left to follow this to a crossroads. Go straight across, then on over a railway crossing.
Pass Barnland Farm and keep on along this rough road, still Tillery Lane, for a mile.
Eventually reach a T-junction with a busy main road (the A259). Cross with great care to a concealed Bridleway which is to the right of metal gates into a turf supply company.
THIS BRIDLEWAY CAN BE IMPOSSIBLY OVERGROWN. DO NOT GET TRAPPED IN THE BRAMBLES BUT RETURN TO THE MAIN ROAD AND TURN LEFT WITH CARE FOR ½ MILE, PAST A FARM, TO REACH WENHAM’S LANE ON YOUR LEFT. WALK UP THIS LANE FOR 1 ½ MILES BACK INTO IVYCHURCH. FOLLOW THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS BACK INTO THE VILLAGE.
If the bridleway is clear, keep on along it for some distance, until it emerges into a field at Owen’s Bridge.
Turn right to follow a ditch on your right, down the field edge and round a corner, for about 100 metres. Pass a concrete post and continue to where the ditch begins to definitely swing away to the right. THERE ARE NO WAYMARKS FROM HERE BACK TO IVYCHURCH SO KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THE OS MAP.
Here turn diagonally left across the field, aiming towards a very tall communications mast in the far distance.
Soon reach a corner with the next field on your right. Bear right, to walk up along the edge of the two fields for 20 metres, to soon reach a further corner (there is a bungalow in the distance).
Here turn left, up the field, to the end of a hedgerow (the church tower is over on your right).
On reaching the hedgerow, keep forward, with the hedge on your left. Follow it to a corner. Where the hedge turns right, turn right to follow it.
Keep along hedge and field edge to the top corner. Then on in a straight line between fields to emerge onto an industrial road. Keep forward to reach a junction with Wenham’s Lane. Go on, up Wenham’s Lane.
Where the lane bears left at the end. Pass an agricultural depot. Immediately turn right onto the brick road of a new housing development. Near the end look for a grassy path off left between fences.
Turn left up here and soon reach a playing field. Go down the side to a road and cross to The Bell pub in Ivychurch and the start of the section.
