Robust Rambles

Section 13

Wartling to Hailsham

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 13  Out

Wartling to Hailsham

Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings & Bexhill (start & finish)                        OS Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head

Distance/Time: 6 miles (3 hours)

Start: The Lamb Inn, Wartling; parking is very limited, either in the inn car park for customers or some on street spaces in front.

COMMENT: This section crosses the Pevensey Levels; it is obviously a very low lying area and becomes very water logged at wet times of year. Wellington Boots and two walking poles remove most of the worry, but even so, use poles to test the depth of mud and standing water before plunging in. In drier times the earth bakes hard and is rough and uneven underfoot. Waymarking across the marshland pasture is poor and erratic; mapwork is essential. There are great views across to the South Downs and of Herstmonceaux Castle and Observatory.

With the Lamb Inn on your left, walk out of the village downhill past the parish church on your left. Almost immediately turn off the road up the vehicle entrance to Batts Hill House. Pass the house on your right and keep on a grassy path to reach a field.

Do not enter the field but turn right into a garden lawn area. Go down the edge of the lawn to the bottom and drop down to a narrow path along a field edge with a steep bank and trees on your left.

Keep on the path as it becomes enclosed and reaches a stile. Cross a wet corner to another small stile, and go on up by a wire fence to a field corner. Go forward straight across the field towards the distant Observatory.

The path goes downhill to join a farm track and on uphill towards a gateway and fieldgate. Do not go to the gateway but on approaching it bear off left to a stile in the fence ahead.

Cross this stile and footbridge and go straight across the field ahead towards trees. Cross a wobbly stile and go down through trees to a footbridge. Cross to a junction of paths. Turn immediately left, up by a fence on your left, to a stile by a metal fieldgate.

Cross, to be faced by two further fieldgates. You can go through either gate and walk the field edge for ½ mile to be faced by a metal fieldgate at the end which may have to be climbed if locked.

Go through the top gate and follow the hedge on the right for an easy walk to double fieldgates at the far end. Go through the first, lower gate, to follow the same hedge, but now on your left, crossing two stiles in hedges as you go. At the far end by residential buildings, ignore a stile and cross a metal fieldgate in the corner.

Over the fieldgates reach the top of a wide farm track (also a bridleway). Turn left downhill on this track. In 100 metres turn right through a gateway into a field corner and go along the edge with a fence on your right.

Where the fence swings right bear diagonally left on a feint farm track across the open field aiming between two wooden power poles. Follow the track as it winds to a gateway under power lines.

Continue along it (it can be very wet with standing water in several places). Pass a wooden fieldgate on your right (the correct route goes through here and across the field but the mud and marsh makes walking impossible in wet conditions). Keep on the main track to reach a stile by a metal fieldgate.

Cross into a field and turn right along the edge. Follow the hedge nearly to the end corner. Just before, turn left across the field and climb onto the bank of the Hurst Haven river. Turn right and go along with the river down on your left. Soon cross a metal fieldgate and keep on along the bank to a second gateway.

Through this immediately come to a metal fieldgate on your left. By this is a narrow stile. Cross and turn right, still alongside the river and soon reach another stile. Keep forward for ¼ mile always by the side of the river. Eventually emerging onto a road at New Bridge(the path has been diverted north of the original route which may still appear on maps). Turn left.

Follow the road over bridges and around bends and pass a house on your right. Go to the second set of metal gates just past the house to find a metal equestrian gate into the corner of a pasture. Go forward along edge with hedge and ditch on your right. Keep along this byway for ¾ mile. After a metal fieldgate halfway the track becomes more enclosed but also more rutted and uneven.

Reach, but ignore, footbridges to the right and left and simply keep on for another ½ mile. The track gradually becomes a more definite farm track called Marshfoot Lane.

Pass Old Marshfoot Farm and keep on through a gateway. The track becomes a road and enters housing. Pass a recreation ground on your left. At the end, just before a school, turn left on a path down the edge of the recreation ground.

At the very bottom of the school grounds, turn right on a narrow concrete path. At the very end turn left up to a T-junction and then right along a bit further to another T-junction. Turn left, uphill, for 100 metres looking for an asphalt path off on your right. Follow this along to a road. Turn left on the road to the junction in the middle of Hailsham.

Cross to go down George Road opposite to soon reach the George Hotel and the end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 13  Return

Hailsham to Wartling

Map: OS Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head

Distance/Time: 8 miles (4 hours)

Start: The George Hotel, Hailsham

Comment: This is a long circuit for a fine summer’s day. This is isolated country and tough going if conditions are at all wet. Do not set out in poor weather or light. Take a phone, map and compass as a matter of course, and make sensible precautions for changes of circumstance. The inland return is less muddy but hillier. There is the Old Forge Hotel in Magham Down, the last amenity there; not sure if facilities are open to walkers.There is some excellent country walking with splendid views south towards the South Downs and sea. The route passes close to Herstmonceaux Castle. However the paths and waymarking in the castle grounds are disgraceful and careful attention to the map is needed.

With the George Hotel behind, turn right and walk back to the road junction. Cross and bear slightly right to go left down Vicarage Road. At a road junction, turn left on the main road (there is a path diversion here). Soon pass the Seaforth Pharmacy and Surgery and reach a Waitrose Supermarket.

Turn immediately right down an asphalt path to a large car park (no waymarks or signs). At a corner follow the path to the right past bollards and keep on around the edge of the car park to the bottom right corner. Here go through a metal kissing gate and on down an enclosed path, by a school(the reason for the diversion), to a stile. Cross into a grassy area about to be enclosed by new building. Go down the edge with a hedge on your right.

At the bottom continue on an enclosed path to a stile. Cross and go up a grassy way between hedges towards trees, pass through a gap on the way. Pass a pond by the trees and reach the top corner of the pasture. Turn right over two stiles, then left up a large pasture with a hedge on your left.

Reach a stile by a metal fieldgate and cross to a grassy way between hedges. Meet a vehicle track. Cross straight over to go up a small grassy area to a stile in the hedge at the top. Cross onto a vehicle track at Longley’s Farm. Bear right along the track past the farm on your left.

Opposite the last house on your right, turn left off the track over a stile into a field. Bear diagonally right across to a stile in a wire fence and continue in the same direction to a footbridge and stile behind two trees. Cross to a concrete farm track and go over to a stile into the opposite field. Bear slightly left downhill to a footbridge and stile in the centre of the hedge at the bottom.

Enter an enclosed footpath and follow it around to the left. After some way emerge at a T-junction by a brick tank. Turn sharp right here through a metal fieldgate to follow a high wire fence on your right down a narrow, feint footpath along the edge of woods, following a stream deep down on the left.

At a corner turn left over a footbridge into a rough pasture. Follow the hedge and stream on your left for ½ mile. Halfway up cross a stile into a vast field. Continue to follow the hedge on your left.

Follow the field edge all the way to the top then round past a garden to a gap in the bushes. Go up an enclosed path by a shed. At the top emerge onto a drive (the Old Forge Hotel, Magham Down, is on the main road up left but only open evenings).

Turn right down the drive. Walk all the way down to the junction of drives by an ornate brick gateway. Ignore the first turning left and go uphill passing a pond on your left and the brick gateway on your right.

Soon reach the buildings of Gildridge Farm. Keep on straight uphill to pass the last building at the top. Here bear left through a wide gap in hedges to the corner of a large sloping field. Bear diagonally left to go down and across the centre of the field to the lowest point between two gentle hills at the far side.

At the bottom leave the field through a gap into a plantation. Continue for 20 metres looking for a gap on your left in the bushes leading down to a footbridge.

Cross and bear left down to a concrete bridge over a stream by a lone tree. Over the bridge follow a feint grassy track which meanders gently right to go along between a hedge on your right and trees on your left. In a short distance it climbs uphill to the brick remains of a ruined building. Just above these remains is a junction of tracks. Turn right across to a metal fieldgate with a farm beyond in the distance.

Through the gate turn sharp left along the top edge of a pasture (a path diversion) to reach a metal swing gate in the hedge at the far side. Go through and down steps to a road. Turn right along the road for ¼ mile. Pass the farm on your right.

Stay on the road, up and around, ignoring a side road off left and a footpath off right. In 20 metres, look for a footbridge on your left in the hedge. Cross this and climb into a field. Go straight up this field to a footbridge in a gap in the hedge at the far side.

Keep on uphill, slightly left of a slate roofed house. At the top turn right on a grassy track. In a few paces go through a gap into a field corner. Here leave the field edge and bear slightly diagonally right to go down and across the centre of the field to the opposite bottom corner (aim just left of a distant windmill).

In the bottom corner, go up through a neck of woodland to a field corner. Continue uphill along the edge of the field with hedge and trees on your left. Keep on for some way to a hazel hedge at the far end of the field (ignore a cross path).

Go down through a gap in the corner to a cross track by an old metal fieldgate. Turn right into a descending field and go across and down the centre to a footbridge at the bottom.

Cross into a sharply rising field with a house at the top. The path has been diverted to keep walkers out of the garden. Bear left uphill to skirt the garden on your right and find a concealed stile at the back by the top hedge. Cross this onto a mean little path much overgrown which leads shortly to another stile out onto a road. It is a pity that diverted paths do not merit a small part of the attention lavished on the gardens they circumnavigate.

Turn right on the road for a few paces then left over a stile (no waymark) by a metal fieldgate. Go up the field edge with a hedge on your left to arrive at a meeting of gateways by an iron gatepost.

Turn left into a field and go forward with a hedge on your right. Where the hedge swings right, continue bear slightly diagonally left uphill across the field to the top opposite corner.

Find a stile in the corner (ignore one into a garden) and turn sharp right down past a barn and house and out onto a road. Turn left a short distance, then right off the road into a path enclosed between fences and hedges. At the end, go through a gate into a field and walk down the edge with a fence on your right.

At the bottom corner by a wooden pole are two footbridges. Turn sharp right over the first footbridge and go forward downhill with a hedge and ditch on your left. At the far end, go through a metal swing gate onto a wide farm track.

Turn right on this track and follow it steeply uphill. At the top turn right on a muddy bridleway. This drops downhill. At the bottom ignore a path off left and continue past trees to reach a water trough. Here, where the main track swings right, leave it and go straight ahead uphill to a wood.

Enter the wood through a metal swing gate and go straight forward through the trees. On approaching the far side, with a castle visible on your left, turn left on a leafy cross path. Soon reach a stile at the edge of the wood.

Cross into a sloping field and walk down to a gate and stile onto a drive at the bottom (Herstmonceaux Castle is over on the left).

Cross the drive and enter a muddy enclosed path. At the end, cross a stile, with difficulty, into a field. Go forward across the centre of the field to a lone tree. Go on over a bridleway and continue to the far corner. Exit the field on an enclosed path and soon emerge into a field corner by a gateway and stile.

Cross the stile into a marshy area. The waymarking here is inaccurate. Over the stile turn immediately right and follow the hedge on your right looking for a rough farm track. Follow this as it follows the foot of the sloping fields on your right, along the edge of the marshy area parallel to the wood over on your left (the Public Right of Way actually bears over to follow the edge of the wood but it is rough and wet).

Follow the track for some way, until it arrives at a metal fieldgate in a fence.  Here turn left along the fence to a footbridge. Turn right over the bridge and continue along the edge of a wood then up to a stile. Cross into a field and go straight ahead to a footbridge and stile at the far side (this path is on the route of the outward section; to avoid roadwalking, go straight ahead back to emerge on the road by the church).

For a different return, having crossed the stile, turn immediately left across to another stile by a white fieldgate. Enter an enclosed path and follow this all the way to a busy road.

Turn right for ¼ mile to return to the Lamb Inn in Wartling and the start of the section. Use the verges and take great care.