Robust Rambles

Section 18

Ringmer to Barcombe Cross

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 18  Out

Ringmer to Barcombe Cross

Map: Explorer 122 Brighton & Lewes

Distance/Time: 6 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Green Man, Ringmer

Comment: A walk of great variety with fields, woods, gentle hills and the unusually watery environment of Barcombe Mills. There is a little road walking but mostly footpaths. The majority are well defined but others need careful looking for. There are stiles. Around Ringmer over grazed horse paddocks reduce the quality of the walking environment in places.

With the Green Man pub on your right, go down the main road towards Ringmer village. Go about 30 metres looking for a gap in the hedge on your right. There are several but the official one should have a wooden fingerpost. Go diagonally left up and across the field, going under power lines between two poles to reach the top hedge. Turn left along the field edge with the hedge on your right.

Soon the hedge bends sharp right to a gap in a corner. This is well before a line of evergreen trees with phone masts behind. Go through the gap and turn left to go straight up a large field to a kissing gate in the far hedge.

Go through and bear slightly diagonally right across the centre of a long narrow pasture. Aim just left of a power pole in the hedge ahead. Cross a ditch halfway and then go through a kissing gate in a gap in the hedge (muddy !). Bear diagonally left across the pasture to a further kissing gate in the end hedge and continue to a road.

Turn left up the road for 200 metres. Just past the last of housing on your right, turn left off the road through a kissing gate and go forward along the top edge of a paddock. Reach and cross a kissing gate and footbridge into a larger paddock.

Bear diagonally right across the centre to the far opposite corner, passing through three squeeze stiles in electric fences as you go; an environment degraded by horses and dogs.

Exit through a kissing gate into a bluebell wood. Follow the main path across to the far side and emerge through yet another kissing gate into pasture. Go straight up the edge with a hedge on your left to a stile by a metal fieldgate and power pole in the corner ahead. Emerge onto a road.

Cross to a drive opposite and go down by Brauncewell House. The drive soon reaches a wet green way made worse by horses (locals seem to use field edge on the right). At the end cross a stile into an area of scrub and continue with a fence on your right.

Where the fence reaches a corner and swings right, down the edge of a large field, go straight ahead uphill, parallel with the hedge and fence over on your left. At the top can be seen a wooden fieldgate in a wire fence.

Reach this, go through and turn right. Pass a concrete trig point pillar and head for house chimneys. At the corner of the field, go through a little kissing gate. Follow a green way to a second kissing gate by outbuildings. Enter an enclosed path which soon emerges onto a drive by a large house. Go down the drive to a main road (A26).

Cross with care and go straight down the entrance to Lower Clayhill Cottages. Walk directly away from the road between buildings. Go straight up the field ahead, with a ditch on your left. Finally pass under power lines to a stile at the top.

Continue across the field beyond to a gap in the hedge. Go through the gap and forward a short distance to a very tall hedge with trees beyond. Turn left along the field edge with this tall hedge on your right. Follow it round to a homemade kissing gate at the far side, by a barn and a house.

Turn left on the access road passing the barn on your left. The roadway soon bends left. Here go straight on through another homemade kissing gate into a field. Go straight down the field roughly parallel with a stream over on your right. At the far end of the field find yet another homemade kissing gate. Go through to finally reach a standard kissing gate into a car park.

Go straight across the car park to a path at the far side. This soon leads out onto a narrow road by a bridge. Turn right over the bridge and then over a second as you join the Ouse Valley Way. Follow the road as it weaves between lakes and water courses, passing an ancient toll booth and the site of mills. On reaching a point where there are houses ahead, turn left on a gravel vehicle track.

Where this turns left to a main road, keep straight on past houses on your right on a gravel path, to reach the road further on. Turn right with care to walk up past the old railway station. Keep on uphill to a sharp right bend. Here leave the road and bear left over a stile by a fieldgate and pillbox.

Three paths start here. Ignore the two straight ahead to stiles in the fence at the far side. Instead bear diagonally right up the steepest part of the field. At the top of the rise go forward down the centre of the field, passing a corner of wire fencing on your left.

Aim across to the far-right corner of this long field. Aim left of farm buildings behind a line of poplar trees. Just left of the far corner is a stile onto a road. Turn right up the road to a T-junction.

Turn left here for a short distance. Opposite the last house on your left, turn right off the road across a concrete hardstand to a gap between a tree trunk and a wooden pole. Go into a yard and up to a barn. Turn right to go around the barn (ignore a gateway into the field at the side).

At the back of the barn turn right down a gravel vehicle track past a house. At a fork bear right towards a house called Half Yard. Almost immediately this track turns right towards the house. Go left off it over a footbridge and on down a field towards a distant lake.

Go through a squeeze stile in the far bottom corner and turn left on a rough track. Go uphill, crossing a cross track by barriers midway, to reach a squeeze stile by a metal fieldgate at the top. Do not go through but turn right across a parking area and on, on a footpath beyond, to emerge onto a road.

Turn right on the road and soon left up Mongers Mead. At the top the road stops but a path continues between bungalows. Exit onto a drive. Turn right down to a crossroads and continue straight on to a T-junction in Barcombe Cross Village. Immediately left is the Royal Oak pub and the end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 18 Return

Barcombe Cross to Ringmer

Map: Explorer 122 Brighton & Lewes

Distance/Time: 6 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Royal Oak, near the village shop in Barcombe Cross

Comment: A pleasant walk of contrasting paths. There are many stiles and one busy road to cross. The final stretch into Ringmer may be very muddy in horse paddocks.

With the Royal Oak behind, turn right and immediately right again, down the side road used on the outward route. Cross the crossroads to reach the path down between bungalows. Ignore this and bear right down a footpath between fences.

Emerge into a field and keep on down the edge with a hedge on your right; ignore side paths.

At the lowest corner of the field, exit onto a narrow path. This soon divides. Bear right, down towards a wooden pylon. Go under the power lines and on down to a flat muddy area (an old railway line). Keep on across to the far side and turn left on a feint path between trees with stream down on your right.

Keep on for some way. On meeting a well defined cross path, turn right, steeply up into a field. Turn left along the field edge with trees on your left.

At the corner, bear right to a gap. Go through and keep forward in the field ahead towards a house. Exit via a metal fieldgate in the far corner onto a road by an old railway bridge (this seems the regularly used route, however the actual PROW goes off right and emerges onto the road further down; if used turn left on the road down to the bridge).

Cross the brick bridge and keep on up the road, past a house on the right and over a stream in a ravine. Keep on up the road. Soon pass under power lines. Immediately turn right off the road up to a stile into a field. Go straight ahead across the field, slightly uphill.

At the far side cross a stile and go down to a further stile by a metal fieldgate and a pillbox. Cross onto a busy road. Because of the rivers and lakes in this area the next half mile uses the outward route.

Turn right down the road past the old railway station. Keep on, looking out for a gravel path on the left going off the road in front of houses. The path soon joins a gravel vehicle track. Keep on along this. Where there is a line of houses up on the left, turn right onto a narrow road which winds between water courses and passes an ancient toll booth.

Finally cross a last bridge to a T-junction with a main road. Just before the junction, turn left on a footpath to a car park. Cross the car park and go out of the vehicle entrance onto the main road. Turn left with great care.

Pass Bridge Farm on your right. In 30 metres more, turn right off the road up through the hedge and over a footbridge and squeeze stile into a field. Walk directly away from the road, up the field towards power lines.

Go through the hedge at the top and turn left along the edge of a field to soon reach a corner. Here turn right to continue down the field edge with a ditch and hedge on your left (this seems a slight diversion from the line on the OS map).

On reaching a footbridge and squeeze stile, cross into the field on the left. Go diagonally right across the corner of the field to a footbridge and stile in the middle of the bottom hedge. Cross and bear right to an enclosed grassy path by an airfield.

Emerge onto a road by a house in Upper Wellingham. Turn left for 100 metres. Look for and cross a footbridge and stile on your right into a yard. Go across to a stile passing a barn on your right.

Cross and keep on slightly left to a stile in a hedge with white houses in the distance. Over this, continue to a further stile, still towards white houses. Cross and continue now directly to the righthand end of the terrace of white houses. Find a stile into an enclosed path down the side to a road. The Cock Inn is up on the left.

Turn right down to a T- junction, then left up to a second T-junction with a main road. Cross with care and turn left for 20 metres to a stile on your right behind a bush, by double fieldgates.

Cross into a field. Ignore a path off right. Go straight ahead, away from the road, along the raised edge of the field. At the far side, go through a hedge and continue in the next field towards houses. Eventually emerge onto a road and turn right.

In 200 metres, opposite a brick cottage, at a bend in the road, turn left up the bank to a gap into a field. Bear diagonally right across the field.

At the far side go diagonally left across a scrubby area, then on down a broad grassy way between a hedge on your left and a fence and farm on your right. Reach a stile and footbridge in the corner ahead. Cross into a rough pasture.

The way now is tricky and the terrain destroyed by horses. Bear left across to a stile by a gateway in a sea of mud. Cross and bear right along the field edge with fence and trees on your right. Cross into another field, then bear sharp right to a stile (in mud) leading to a grassy footpath. Follow this down to a road and turn left.

Walk along the road for 200 metres between houses. Pass a recreation ground on the right, then a side road on your right. At the end of housing, reach a road off left called Tile Kiln. Turn left up here.

At the top, just before industrial units, turn right through the hedge and across a footbridge into a field. Go straight across this field aiming just right of a row of evergreen trees with masts behind.

At the far side, pass the end of the trees on your left, and reach the far corner of the field with a wide gap in the hedge. Do not go through gap, but turn right, to go along with the hedge on your left.

Soon reach a corner where the hedge swings left along the field edge. Here leave the hedge and go diagonally left across the centre of the field, under power lines between two poles towards a busy road at the far side.

Go through a gap in the bottom hedge onto the pavement by the side of the road. Turn left a short distance to reach the Green Man pub and the start of the section.