Robust Rambles

Section 1

Greatstone-to-Gillingham

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 1  Out

Greatstone-on-Sea to Lydd

Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/Time: 4.5 Miles/ 2.5 hours

Start: The Jolly Fisherman pub in Greatstone-on-Sea; coastal car parks available, busy in summer.

Comments: Very distinctive terrain here with vast banks of shingle which obscures the path. There is a distinct railway presence as the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Light Railway is crossed (be very careful, these locomotives are not toys and trains travel at speed), there are several crossings of disused tracks from the old New Romney branch, then the freight branch to the power station at Dungeness. Rather a maze of paths into Lydd.

From the Jolly Fisherman pub walk down the main road away from the road junction with the sea over on your left. Continue down the road for a mile (or walk along the coast). Pass a pub and the turning to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway(RHDR) station.

Keep on until house number 264 is reached, about 200 metres before a large barnlike toilet block and car park on the coast side of the road.

Immediately past the house turn right, off the road, on a footpath enclosed between houses. Soon reach the track of the RHDR (take care a train is not approaching as the visibility is poor). Cross the line and bear right to continue up the enclosed path. Quickly emerge onto a road.

Cross and again go between houses to emerge onto a vast expanse of shingle. The path continues for a mile across the shingle without any waymarks. Look for the tower of Lydd church which should be directly ahead and a strange water tower over on the left.

Walk directly away from the houses up the shingle to reach the dilapidated fencing of an old railway track. Cross and continue up the shingle towards Lydd church tower passing a water filled gravel pit on your right.

Pass the water tower way over on your left and keep straight up towards the broken fencing of another disused railway track. If you are on course you will find a  waymark and marker stones here.

The path turns left and follows along the edge of the railway formation. To start with actually on the trackbed, but as it becomes overgrown, drop down onto the original path by the side. Walking is rather rough but keep on by the old railway, over a twisted footbridge, to finally reach a real railway line (the freight line to Dungeness Power Station).

Turn right up the side of the line (which is on your left). Ignore a track crossing the railway and keep on to a double fieldgate. Through this cross a footbridge and continue up by the railway.

In 50 metres turn left over a stile and cross the railway. At the far side turn right up a field edge with the railway now on your right. In 50 metres, at a concrete post, turn left away from the railway and cross the field heading for a group of six pylons in the far distance. Reach and cross a very bad footbridge and turn right along the field edge with a stream on your right for 150 metres.

Just before reaching a bush, turn left across the field aiming for new houses and the church tower. Cross a footbridge and a further field to exit through a wooden gate onto the end of a road between houses. Go straight up to a T- junction on the edge of Lydd.

Turn left on the main road for a short distance. In 10 metres go right up a footpath between a wall and a fence. At the road at the top turn right and then left by a graveyard.

Almost immediately turn left down a gravel track at the back of houses. At the very end turn right on an unmade road to a junction. Here turn left to a crossroads. Go straight across. At the end of a terrace of houses on your right, turn right into the churchyard. Keep on to pass the church on your right. Soon reach the High Street.

Turn left to reach the George Hotel and the end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 1   Return

Lydd to Greatstone

Map OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/Time: 5 miles/3 hours

Start: From the centre of Lydd at the George Hotel. On-road parking opportunities.

Comment: The paths across the countryside here are tough going as this is not a leisure walking area. The section near the Golf Club needs negotiating with care and dilapidated stiles and fences slow progress. This is wide open country with the isolated feeling of the old smuggling days. New Romney church is worth a visit.

With the George Hotel on your right walk past the church and keep on for ½ mile out of the village on the main road. Cross the railway line by the station, now closed and recently severely damaged by fire, and keep forward with care. By the last house on your left, drop down the bank on the right onto the grass and continue along the edge of the road.

Cross a side road and continue for ½ mile using the grass verge. Eventually cross the entrance road to a golf club car park (bar and restaurant open to the public). A few metres beyond, turn right off the road up an overgrown enclosed path down the side of a bungalow.

The path actually soon climbs up into the field on the left to follow the hedge on your right up the edge of the field. Where the hedge swings sharp right, keep forward across the field, to a line of trees ahead. Leave the field onto a grassy track and turn left (if you cannot find the way into the field go onto the golf course and follow the edge past a long pond, to meet a gravel track by a line of trees. Turn left along this, passing the trees, to meet the point where the proper path comes in from the field on your left).

Continue along with a hedge on your left to a corner. Here bear right a few paces and find a place to cross a wire fence (a section appears to lift off with great difficulty). Continue with a ditch on your right and a farm beyond.

Soon cross a farm entrance road and continue for some way with the ditch on your right. At the end of a second field (currently growing turf) reach a wooden pole with power lines. Here bear right over a long single timber bridge. Turn left up the side of the stream to soon reach an old stile.

Now bear right, away from the stream, diagonally across a field aiming for a church tower. At the far side cross a farm bridge and keep on diagonally across the next field. In the far opposite corner cross a stile into an area of grassy mounds and keep on to the far opposite corner of this.

Exit through a metal fieldgate by old farm buildings and go down the track to a road. Turn right on the road to soon reach New Romney church. The New Inn and shops are over on the left.

At the church turn right down a narrow road. Soon pass a surgery on your right and continue for ¼ mile, eventually between fields, to reach a crossing of the RHDR. DO NOT CROSS but, just before, turn right along a wide track between hedges. Follow this to soon cross the railway track and continue, to come out onto a private concrete road.

Go down here to the very end to reach a road junction at the start of the section in Greatstone-on-Sea.