Robust Rambles

Section 2

Lydd to Old Romney

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 2 Out

Lydd to Old Romney

Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/time: 4 miles/2.5 hours

Start: the George Hotel in Lydd village centre; on road parking nearby.

Comment: Walking in the heart of Romney Marsh with extensive views, much pasture and sheepfolds. Inevitably stiles and fences, often in poor condition.

With the George Hotel on your right, walk along the High Street to the parish church. At the church turn left across the road and go up the sideroad, Dennes Lane, opposite. Keep up here for a ¼ of a mile.

Ignore a footpath off left along a gravel track, and keep on until a pasture opens out on your left. At a bend in the road, opposite The Bungalow, go left over a stile

onto the pasture.  Walk up, parallel to the road over on your right but cutting the corner off. Aim towards a wooden pole at the end of trees ahead.

Exit through a metal fieldgate onto the road and turn immediately left to a stile into the field ahead. Go straight up the field towards a lone brick house with a pylon behind. At the top of the field cross a ditch and stile. Now bear right towards a group of houses.

At the far side cross a wire fence (the stile is dismantled and the fingerpost lying under grass on the verge). Cross a narrow road to the stile opposite and enter a field. Cross the field past a house on your right towards a white house at the far side. Cross a stile onto a road.

Turn left up the road past Westbrook Farm. Where the road swings right, cross a stile and go straight up the field to a footbridge under power lines.

Beyond the footbridge soon reach a corner of the ditch on your right. Here go on straight up the field (ignore a railway crossing over on your right). Bear slightly right towards a church ruin and a railway crossing in the top corner.

Cross the railway over a staggered crossing into a field. Go diagonally left across the field past the church ruin on your right. Do not veer towards the farm over on your left.

Reach and cross a footbridge and enter a vast field.

Bear slightly right across the centre towards a white house in the far distance at the edge of a village. After passing a wooden footbridge over on your left, begin to bear right, aiming now to the right hand end of the village ahead. Reach a metal fieldgate and ditch at the far side at a crossing of ways.

Go forward into the field ahead, aiming the righthand of the house cluster ahead, to a footbridge over the White Kemp Sewer.

Now bear right again, away from the village towards the tower of Old Romney church just visible in the distance. Leave the field over a footbridge onto a road.

Turn left along the road for 150 metres. Just around a sharp lefthand bend, go right over a stile into an enclosed path between wire fences with, strangely, trees planted down the middle.

Eventually emerge over a stile onto a busy road. Turn left and soon left again down a side road to reach the Rose and Crown and end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 2  Return

Old Romney to Lydd

Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/Time: 5 Miles/3 hours

Start: The Rose and Crown Pub at Old Romney

Comment: Again very large fields of pasture where no path is evident; frequent need to identify a distant landscape feature and aim towards it. The time allocation is generous but going can be very slow. Waymarking is patchy.

Start with the Rose & Crown on your right. Immediately past the building cross the car park and go through a service area and down a scrubby bank to a stile into a large field.

Bear diagonally left across the centre of the field between power poles and continue, bearing right of wind generators in the distance. Keep parallel with a low treeline way over on your right.

At the far side of the field cross a footbridge. Continue diagonally left across the field ahead, aiming between an isolated house on your right and the wind generators on the left. Reach a footbridge in the far opposite corner. Cross this onto an abandoned road !

Turn left along this, ignoring a footpath off right a little way along, to reach a T-junction at the far end.

Turn left along the road and in ¼ mile reach another T-junction. Again, turn right onto a wider road and in ¼ mile cross a railway. Continue for another ¼ mile to a junction with a side road. Turn right along it.

In ¼ mile, just after a sharp righthand bend, go left, off the road, over a fence (no stile) and follow a field edge with a ditch on your left towards wind generators.

In 150 metres, turn left over a footbridge into a huge field. Bear quite sharply diagonally right across the field to a lone house at the far side. Leave the field and pass the house on your left. Turn left onto the vehicle drive to the house, made of crushed brick.

Go down the drive to a T-junction (the paths here may differ from the OS map as the network has been subject to an improvement plan). In ¼ mile reach a Y-fork by a water tank. Bear left along a rough track with a ditch on your left (new path).

Keep on the track for ½ mile, along field edges to eventually meet a wide cross track on the Tore Wall. Go forward across a ditch and down onto a lower field.

Bear diagonally left across the centre of the field towards a pylon which is left of a church tower in the distance. At the far side of the field cross a small ditch and enter a very large field.

This time aim for the second pylon to the left of the church tower. At the far side cross an old brick bridge. Turn right up by a hedge on your right.

At the top corner cross another farm bridge to a corner of extraction works. Here bear left along the edge of the field with works on your right. Exit the field through a metal fieldgate and turn left on a grassy track. This is not a public right of way but is well used by local walkers.

Keep along to the end of the track aiming for the church tower. Pass a lake on your right and at the far side, by the corner of another lake on your left, turn left on an enclosed footpath which is back on the public right of way.

At the end emerge onto a vehicle track and bear right along it. Follow it all the way to a road. Turn right back into Lydd. At a T-junction turn right again back to the George Hotel and the start of the section.