Section 16
Ripe to Laughton
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 16 Out
Ripe to Laughton
Map: Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head
Distance/Time: 4 miles/ 2 hours
Start: The village shop near the former Lamb Inn, Ripe.
Comment: The countryside and views are varied and scenic. The detail is not so good. The country is well worked, either for cattle or arable and heavy machinery and animals leave pitted and lumpy surfaces in dry weather and mud in wet. Unfortunately, aggressive landowning and horsiculture mean that in many places walkers are not welcome and paths are neglected and hidden, in the hopes that people will stop using them. These pressures mean that this section has slightly more road walking than initially planned. There are few waymarks and often an old concrete footstone in a road verge is the only indication of a right of way.
With The Lamb Inn on your left, walk to the little roundabout in the centre of the village. Turn left down The Street, by the inn car park. Immediately turn right into the entrance to Manor House (there is a waymark post in the inn car park). Go across the gravel parking area to a pond and follow the line of paving stones around the pond to a corner at the top side. Cross a stile into an enclosed path and follow round buildings to emerge onto a drive. Turn left along the drive.
At the end is a locked gate and a road beyond. Go to the right of the gate, to another metal fieldgate and exit onto the road. Turn right along the road in the same direction as before. Because all alternative paths are unwalkable, go straight on along the road for ½ mile.
Reach a T-junction. Bear slightly left then immediately right over a stile by a metal fieldgate into a large field used for turf. Go up the edge with a hedge on your right. At the far corner pass a barn on your left. The path divides here. Bear right up a farm track. The next mile or so is difficult because there are no waymarks.
Follow the farm track to a bend and a rough area with abandoned farm trailers. Here leave the farm track and bear left into bushes in the top corner. Cross a broken stile and footbridge into a soggy pasture. Follow the Hedge and wire fence on your right to a metal fieldgate in the corner and continue.
Keep on in the same general direction for ¼ mile on a green way, ignoring gates off right. Wind slightly left, then right through woodland (ignore a track off left) to continue in the same general direction. Go though a metal fieldgate and across the top of a field to a chalky vehicle track in front of a wooden fieldgate. Turn right on the chalky track through a gateway and on slightly uphill. Over a wide stream the track bends left then right. Leave the track here to go along the bottom of the field with a hedge on your left and the stream beyond. At the far end reach a squeeze stile. Do not go through but turn right up the field edge.
Keep on up the field edge, ignoring another squeeze stile in the hedge, with a building over on the right. At the top corner leave the field over a plank bridge and turn right on a chalky access track.
On reaching the building turn left off the track into a field, then immediately right to follow the field edge with hedge on your right. At a corner turn left and continue up the side of the field. Keep uphill for some way on the grassy field edge ignoring all side gates to eventually reach a cross hedge at the top, just beyond power lines.
Turn right through a gap into the adjoining field. In 10 metres, turn left through a kissing gate in the hedge on your left. The path divides here. Keep left to go straight up the field edge with a hedge on your left.
At the top corner turn sharp left through a wooden fieldgate then immediately right through another into a large field.
Bear right across the middle, just right of distant farm buildings and just left of a lone tree in the hedgeline at the far side. Find a squeeze stile hidden in the hedge. Squeeze through and bear left across the corner of the field to a wooden fieldgate in the hedge. Enter a rising field and go diagonally right uphill to the top right corner. Cross a stile into an enclosed path at the foot of gardens.
At the end, cross another stile and turn left on a broad track out to a main road. Cross and turn right to reach the Roebuck Inn (currently closed) and the village shop and post office in Laughton and the end of the section.
GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 16 Return
Laughton to Ripe
Map: Explorer 123 Eastbourne & Beachy Head
Distance/Time: 4 miles/ 2 hours
Start: Village Shop & Post Office, Laughton
Comment: Some excellent countryside, but many problems with paths. The initial planned path has completely disappeared hence the road walk down to the church. Spend a little while looking around here. Most paths are hard to find, diverted or being camouflaged out of existence by landowners. But walking is an adventure ! You should be prepared to climb the occasional fieldgate. There are significant path diversions around Ripe to remove crossfield paths; reinstatement across crops is poor.
With the village shop and Roebuck Inn building behind, cross the main road, to go down Church Lane opposite. Pass the village hall and school to reach the church and churchyard.
Here turn left down a grassy track by the side of a house to reach a stile (broken) by the side of a metal fieldgate. Go through and go down side of the field ahead to a stile and footbridge in the bottom corner. Go diagonally left up the next field, initially to the left of a pond, to a low stile in the hedge beyond.
Continue slightly left across the next field (currently no reinstatement across crops), to a chunky stile in the hedge. Cross into a lawned showground area. There are now no waymarks and a clear intention to discourage use of paths.
Go straight ahead to pass a lone tree on your left. Keep forward on a gravel track to reach a small wooden toilet block. Just to the left is a gap in the hedge with a plank bridge. Cross into a further grassed area. Go diagonally right across and down to the far bottom corner.
Just to the left of the bottom corner is an arched gap in an evergreen hedge. Go through this and turn right on an enclosed path for a few paces to emerge into a small area of grass and trees. Go diagonally right across to the far corner and exit onto a road over a footbridge.
Turn right down the road for 100 metres. Just after informal passing places, turn right off the road over a footbridge and almost immediately a stile, into a scrubby corner of a field. Walk away from the road on a narrow path through briars, then on up the field edge with a hedge on your right. Now enter horse country.
At the corner ahead, cross a double stile (part broken) and go forward to another stile (broken). Continue along the edge of paddock to the final corner, then turn left, to continue up the bottom side of the paddock with a hedge on your right and buildings over on the left.
Walk up to a squeeze stile (apparently the legal requirement for horse paddocks), and continue through two more (ignore one off right), cross a footbridge and a fourth squeeze stile into a large field (the stiles seem to become increasingly narrower and very difficult for the well built). Turn immediately right along the field edge. At the corner turn left to go right down to the bottom. Turn left along the bottom edge to the far corner and a stile and footbridge out to a road. Turn left along the road to a T-junction.
Turn left for a few paces then right into the entrance to Cleavers Farm. Go up to a little wooden gate, then through a small stable block to another wooden swing gate. Continue down between fences to an impossibly heavy iron fieldgate into a field beyond. Keep down the side, with hedge on your left, all the way to the bottom corner.
Here exit through a lighter metal fieldgate and cross a stream. Bear right to follow the hedge around the field edge and uphill (ignore all gaps).
Near the top the hedge swings away right. Here continue straight across the field towards a house. Find a small swing gate in the hedge. Go through and follow a wire fence on your right past the house to a further gate. Continue to a stile and footbridge in the hedge ahead.
Enter a field and turn sharp right along field edge with a hedge on your right. Continue around the corner and on down edge to the bottom corner. Cross a footbridge into a large field. The route now follows several path diversions and creations to reach Ripe.
Turn right along the field edge with a ditch on your right. At a corner ahead go straight on through a gap in the hedge still with the ditch on your right. At the next corner go left a few paces then right down a large track over a stream coming out of the head of a large fishing lake.
Walk forward a few metres then bear left to walk down the side of the lake, now on your left. At the far end of the lake reach a corner of fields under power lines. Here, turn right, up the edge of a large field, with a hedge on your right.
At the top corner reach a metal fieldgate with a road beyond. Do not go through but turn immediately left by a section of stream to reach a driveway. Go down this drive. On approaching a house entrance ahead, look for a footpath going off right. Follow this enclosed path as it twists around the back of buildings to reach a stile.
Cross into a garden and follow a path of paving stones around the edge of a pond on your left. Where the stones end, go straight ahead past a house, over a gravel area and up the entrance drive to exit onto a road. Turn left a few paces to reach a roundabout in the middle of Ripe. The shop is beyond and The Lamb Inn on your right.
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