Robust Rambles

Section 15

Upper Dicker to Ripe

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 15   Out

Upper Dicker to Ripe

Map: Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head

Distance/Time: 4 miles/ 2 hours

Start: The Plough Inn, Upper Dicker; parking here for customers

Comment: Pleasant secluded countryside and wild flower meadows, but expect difficulties through horsiculture with many paddocks, temporary fencing, neglected paths, obliterated routes and lack of waymarking, also unreinstated paths through crops and some little used and overgrown paths because of these access problems. Map essential. The pub at Ripe has closed and is replaced by new housing, however there is an excellent village shop in the village centre.

With the Plough Inn at Upper Dicker on your left, go back down the main road. By the pedestrian crossing, turn left down Camberlot Road. Pass school buildings to reach a drive going off left between impressive high brick walls. There are adverts to business units including motorcaravans and a dentist. Turn left down here.

Follow this drive all the way to the end past the motorcaravan service area to reach a metal fieldgate. Go through and immediately look for a stile in the fence on your left. Cross into a field. Turn right and walk down the field roughly parallel with fence on your right. At the bottom find a stile in a gap in the hedge at the bottom.

Continue down the field ahead to a footbridge. Cross and bear slightly left across marshy land to a second footbridge and on to a stile in the hedge at the far side.

Cross into a large field. Bear left, parallel with the hedge on your left, across to a stile and footbridge in the hedge at the far end.

Cross into another field. Go ahead very slightly left to a dead tree in the hedge at the far side (well left of a pond). Find an ancient footbridge and stile hidden in the thick hedge. Cross to the next field. Turn sharp right along the edge and soon left at the corner to continue up the field edge with a hedge on your right.

At the top reach an impromptu stile of tree trunks by a metal fieldgate. Cross and head downhill, slightly right, to the righthand of two metal fieldgates. Go through and continue forward towards farm buildings with a wire fence on your left.

Exit through the farmyard on to a road. Turn left up the road which is pleasant and treelined for ½ mile. The road begins to rise. Pass a farm on your right. At the top of the hill look for a stile by a metal fieldgate. Cross and go straight down the field with a fence and trees on your right.

At the bottom go through a metal fieldgate into a rising pasture. Go diagonally left across to a stile by a metal fieldgate in the middle of the side hedge. Over this continue in the same diagonal direction to the very far opposite corner of this vast pasture.

Hidden in the corner by a metal fieldgate is a stile. Cross into an equestrian area. The path should go diagonally across the site but there is no waymarking and no stile at the far side onto the road. The only practical way is to use the entrance drive to the stables to access the road.

On reaching the road turn left a few paces looking for a stile in the hedge on the right. Cross and go forward 10 metres to a further stile. This leads to a narrow very overgrown path by a wire fence. Follow this cruelly neglected path to a stile at the end into a field.

The path should go diagonally right up and across the field to the far top opposite corner. Currently there is no reinstatement through a crop so it was necessary to turn right and walk up the side to the top corner, then go left still along the edge to a metal fieldgate on the right just before the next corner.

Turn right through the gate then immediately left along the edge of the next field, turning right at the corner to continue along the edge with trees, bushes and a stream on your left. Near the top of the field (marked by a long line of tall trees), look for a footbridge off left over the stream. Cross and bear right to a metal fieldgate by a ruined outbuilding.

Through the gate go forward to a grassy farm track. Cross this and go through bushes to a broken stile by a metal fieldgate. Over the stile go forward bearing slightly right through several horse paddocks with gaps in electric fencing. At the far side reach an ancient stile and footbridge in a restricted gap in the hedge.

Cross into a paddock. Go straight across bearing very slightly left, looking for an aged and unusual but broken stile completely hidden in the hedge. Cross it and the old footbridge beyond into a large field.

Turn diagonally left and walk up and across the centre of the field to the far opposite top corner (this is a path diversion from the OS map). In the corner find a stile by a metal fieldgate. Cross to a road. Turn right up the road. Just around the corner is the village centre in Ripe with a shop and the, now closed, Lamb Inn and the end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 15   Return

Ripe to Upper Dicker

Map: Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head

Distance/Time: 4½  miles/ 3 hrs

Start: The village shop and former Lamb Inn, Ripe; parking for customers or on street.

Comment: great lack of way marks makes going harder; two excellent churches

With the Lamb Inn on your right, walk back down the road away from the village centre. Pass the footpath used on the outward route and continue along the road. Where the road bends left, go forward on the driveway, to the parish church. Enter the churchyard. The church is historic and well worth a visit.

Walk down the churchyard to a wooden kissing gate at the far end. Cross a horse paddock to a stile in a fence, then on to a further stile in the hedge ahead.

Continue in the same direction across a field to a gap leading into the next field and go forward along the field edge with trees and bushes on your left. Head towards a church ahead.

Reach a corner and pass through a wooden kissing gate into a paddock. Keep on, to enter the churchyard at Chalvington. The church is also worth a visit. Walk up the churchyard to exit onto a road.

Turn left up the road to a junction. Here turn right and stay on the road for ¼ mile. Where the road swings right, go straight ahead past cottages to a metal fieldgate into a large field.

Go diagonally left across the field. There is a gap halfway up the hedge on the far side with a path continuing on to a farm in the distance.( If this cannot be found, go up to a metal fieldgate near the top corner. Go through and turn left to follow a farm track across to a metal fieldgate into a farmyard). Go up to the farmhouse ahead.

Leave the field to go into the farmyard and parking area. Continue past the farmhouse on your right, to reach a T-junction with the farm access drive.

Turn right between buildings. Where the drive swings right, look for a footpath off left just before the last building on your left.

Go straight down to enter a narrow end of a field. Continue forward along the bottom edge with a hedge on your right. At the corner ahead, swing left a few paces looking for a way through the hedge and trees on the right into the next field.

Go through and continue along the edge of this field, still with a hedge and trees on your right. You are now skirting Claverton Manor also on the right.

Look for a way through on your right, again into the next field. Again turn right and follow the hedge on your right, still skirting Claverton Manor behind the hedge.

At the bottom corner of the field, exit through a gap between trees, into a narrow, rectangular field. Go down it, keeping to the left edge, with a hedge on your left.

Emerge over a stile by a metal fieldgate onto a busy road.

Cross with care and turn left for a few paces to a vehicle access at the side of Candle Cottage. Turn right down this to a narrow grassy enclosed path at the back. This soon reaches a field.

Join a farm track and follow it to the left past a barn. Where the track swings left at the end of the barn, leave it to go straight ahead across the field towards a hedge.

Go through a gap in the hedge and continue across the next field to exit onto a road. Cross to an old footbridge and steps upto a stile into a field.

Go straight across the field to a gap in the hedge between two poles. Cross a footbridge and bear right down to the bottom right corner. Here join the Wealdway and turn left along the bottom edge of the field with a hedge of trees and bushes on your right.

Where the hedge drops off right, go straight ahead, aiming just right of a wooden pole. For the next half mile aim generally just left of a large wood on the hill ahead.

Past the pole, continue on to a footbridge at the far side leading into a pasture. Bear left across to a stile in the opposite hedge. Enter a rising pasture. Go slightly right, across the centre, to a stile by a metal fieldgate with a cottage beyond.

Walk up to pass the cottage and reach a stile by a metal fieldgate. Cross to a road. Turn left a few paces then right over a stile by a metal fieldgate into a field.

Keep along the top edge of the field with a wood on your right. At the top corner leave the field and bear right up to a stile by a metal fieldgate into a golf course. Go on down the edge with trees and fence on your left.

Leave the golf course by a wooden gate next to a mound of concrete blocks and continue down a paddock to a stile by a metal fieldgate. Enter an enclosed path which winds round and over a second stile to reach a busy road. Turn right along the verge then cross with care to the Plough Inn and start of the section.