Robust Rambles

Section 12

Hooe Common to Wartling

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 12  Out

Hooe Common to Wartling

Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings & Bexhill

Distance/Time: 4 miles/2 hours

Start: The Red Lion on Hooe Common; parking by the pub.

Comment: Once again a walk with many twists and turns to start with, so many instructions. Hooe church is worth a visit. The second half of the walk marks the entrance to Pevensey Levels, so, potentially, open vistas but a great deal of water. Check status of Lamb Inn at Wartling before setting out.

From the car park of the Red Lion pub turn left up the road, over a side turning and on up between houses. Look out for a footpath off right down a grassy way just before the road junction.

Go straight down the path to the bottom and go through a kissing gate into a field. Keep on down the field and at the far end cross a footbridge then through a wooden kissing gate into an enclosed path through trees.

Go through several kissing gates on a well defined path to emerge by a bungalow onto a rough drive. Go on up the drive to a T-junction and turn right down a lane.

Soon pass a house on your right and immediately go through a metal fieldgate into a field. Go on in the same direction with a hedge on your right, following power lines.

At the end of the field the hedge stops and the path divides. Bear right, down under the power lines to a wood. Turn left along the edge of the wood, now on your right, to a corner. Look for a stile hidden in the hedge.

Cross and turn right down the edge of the field ahead, still with the wood on your right. Bear left at the bottom around to a footbridge in the hedge into the adjoining field. Turn sharp left along the bottom edge of the field with a stream on your left.

Go to the corner at the far end. Here turn left over a squeeze stile in the hedge, then immediately right along the edge of a field with a hedge on your right. After some way look for a gap in the hedge with a fieldgate and farm bridge.

Cross bridge into a rising field and go straight uphill, away from the stream, to a huge stile in the hedge at the top. Cross and continue up a field with a hedge on your right.

At the top corner go right over a stile into a field, then forward a few paces, then left over another stile into a house garden. Go along by a brick wall (actually a haha !), passing the house on your left, to reach a drive.

Turn right up the drive. Soon pass an ancient tile-hung house on your left. Here turn left into a concrete drive, then immediately right, over a stile into a paddock. Turn left along the fence and walk along by the concrete drive. At the end cross a stile onto a road. Turn right up the road.

In a few paces, turn left off the road by a brick gatepost, up a rough gravel track. At the top of the rise, pass an oast house over on the right and keep forward, down a field edge, with a hedge on your left.

Drop down to the bottom corner. Go through a metal fieldgate into a rising field. Bear diagonally left up and over the top of the highest part of the field to the far opposite corner, to reach a track going forward over a farm bridge.

Cross the bridge and go up the field beyond with a hedge on your right. At the top go through a metal fieldgate onto a road. Turn left down to Hooe parish church.

Go through a gate into the churchyard and walk up the side of the church past the entrance porch (well worth stopping for a visit). Keep on to the corner beyond and find a stile into a field. Go up a grassy, rather overgrown, track between fields by telegraph poles.

At the top cross two stiles by fieldgates and follow a concrete drive to a road. Go straight across, up a gravel drive by a house (Willow Cottage). Where the drive ends continue on a narrow, overgrown path to a footbridge into a field, by a pond on your left.

Landscaping has changed the paths here. Go straight up the field, parallel to the houses on your right to a footbridge at the top. Turn left over this into a large field. Go straight ahead over the field parallel to the hedge over on your right.

Where the hedge ends keep on in same direction past a square open section. Now bear right, aiming just left of a distant phone mast, to a stile in the hedge on your right (careful over this stile as there is a strand of barbed wire running along the top).

Go diagonally left across the next field to the far opposite corner and a stile out onto a busy road. Turn left down the road for 200 metres with great care, stopping when traffic approaches. Reach the Lamb Inn on your left.

Keep forward with extra care over the road junction then over a bridge with white railings. Look for a stile hidden in the hedge on your right and cross into a large pasture. Walk away from the road along the pasture edge with a stream on your right.

Keep on for some way to reach a farm track with a stile dead ahead. Cross and enter another pasture. Bear slightly right following power lines and poles across the field. At the corner at the far end, cross a stile on the left, by a metal fieldgate, and go up past a pond to a bank.

Climb this and at the top turn right over a stile and follow the bank a short distance to a wooden gate. Go down onto a road and turn left over a bridge, then immediately left again over a stile by an old wooden fieldgate.

Turn sharp right up the field edge with a treeline on your right. On reaching a corner, cross a footbridge and bear slightly left across the open meadow towards the main tree group at the far side.

Go right through a metal fieldgate and in a few paces left over a stile and uphill, bearing slightly diagonally right towards the middle of the top end of the field.

Find a footbridge and a stile into the rising field ahead. Bear right steeply uphill on an earthen cattle track. Follow the track diagonally uphill to meet the top hedge at a metal fieldgate.

Go through to the field beyond and bear diagonally right to a stile in a fence. Continue in same direction, across to the far opposite corner just left of a house with a hipped roof.

Cross a stile by a fieldgate and turn right on a farm road for a short distance to meet a public road. Continue down this, passing a car park, to a junction with a main road and the Lamb Inn at Wartling on the left. This is the end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 12  Return

Wartling to Hooe Common

Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings & Bexhill

Distance/Time: 5 miles/2.5 hours

Start: The Lamb Inn in Wartling; parking nearby.

Comment: There are many stiles and several obscure paths to seek out. Boreham Street has facilities if needed, before back across the marshes to Hooe Common. A missing footpath near the end requires a few careful moments to finish safely.

With the Lamb Inn behind, cross the road junction, slightly right, to a minor road to Boreham, just past a fine yew tree. Follow this road for ½ mile going under power lines halfway. Continue until reaching a rough, gravel layby on your left.

Here, cross a stile into the corner of a field. The path should go up and across the field but it may be easier to go forward along the bottom edge with a stream on your left. Follow the stream and field edge all the way to the furthest corner.

Reach a stile by a metal fieldgate and exit onto a narrow road. Turn right and soon left over a stile into field. The next section is easy to follow as it is part of the 1066 Walk. Go diagonally right across field to a stile in the far corner, then up the field edge to a further stile.

Cross and go diagonally left uphill to a stile in a fence, then straight uphill to a stile at the top. Keep forward along the top of the hill to yet another stile, then diagonally left down towards trees.

In the far corner cross a stile into a field and walk along the edge with a wood on your left. At the end of the wood, go straight ahead into the next field, and follow the edge with a fence on your right.

Bear left at the top by a garden hedge, then right by a barn over a stile into an enclosed path. Go down to a road.

Turn right and follow the road through the village of Boreham Street, passing the Bull’s Head, then a petrol station, then a restaurant. Just past a traffic island, turn right down a grassy track by a metal barrier.

At the foot of the slope, at a metal fieldgate, go through the gate at the side into a large field. Bear slightly diagonally left across the field to a wide gateway in the hedge at the far side.

Through this bear right to a wooden pole in the middle of the field beyond then on in the same direction down to another pole at the far side. Beyond this pole are metal fieldgates.

Head straight out of the field, through the gates and on with a ditch on your left towards trees and powerlines.

Reach and cross a long narrow footbridge over a wide waterway. The next section across water meadow is hard to follow. The path divides. From the bridge bear diagonally left to follow a straight ditch heading away from the river over on your left.

Eventually reach a cross stream and turn right over a farm bridge up to the edge of the marshy ground onto a farm track. Turn left on this and follow it along, passing a gate and track off right, then a large pond to reach a (locked) metal fieldgate.

Climb this and turn right over a farm bridge into field with a pylon (this is waymarked but this doesn’t seem to be the proper right of way). Once in the field turn left and go along parallel to the hedge on your left and the power lines up on your right. Do not climb up or cross under the power lines.

At the far end of the field, at the bottom end of some trees in the hedge, search for a hidden stile. Cross this and an overgrown footbridge and a broken stile into a field.

Turn diagonally right across the field corner to a pylon, then on along the field edge to the second metal fieldgate. Go through to a farm track and turn right.

Follow the track to a junction with a drive. Turn right, up this, to eventually reach a very busy road.

There should be a footpath opposite but it could not be found. Turn right with great care down the road for 200 metres then turn left along a minor road at the foot of the hill. At the end turn left on another road and follow this all the way back to the Red Lion pub in Hooe Common and the start of the section.