Robust Rambles

Section 3

Old Romney to Brookland

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 3  Out

Old Romney to Brookland

Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/Time: 5 miles/3 hours

Start: The Rose & Crown at Old Romney; local perking opportunities

Comments: The full-throated Romney Marsh countryside with endless pasture, bridges and ditches. Paths are not always easy to find so allow plenty of time. Old Romney and Brookland churches are full of local character and require visiting.

With the Rose & Crown pub on your left, walk up the road (ignoring side roads), to a junction with a main road. Turn right along it traversing a grassy patch. Soon cross the main road to a side road opposite signed to Ivychurch.

Climb into a field on your right (there is a locked gate or a fence to cross but no stile), and cross to a wooden fieldgate in front of Old Romney church. Enter the churchyard and turn left to reach the entrance drive (Old Romney church is a splendid place and beautifully restored so well worth a visit).

Go down the entrance drive to a junction with a road at the bottom. Turn right on the road for 150 metres, past a barn, to a bend where there are two sets of double fieldgates and many wooden bollard poles at the field edge on your left.

Turn left off the road by the second set of gates, and walk away from the road on a narrow grassy field edge with a ditch on your right (make sure the ditch is on your right as it is easy to follow the wrong field edge).

Follow the ditch and field edge for ½ mile to a footbridge. Cross and follow the ditch now on your left. In a short distance, cross the corner of the field to another footbridge, aiming for the tower of the church at Ivychurch in the distance.

Cross onto a raised grassy track between ditches (ignore a second footbridge the other side). Turn left along the grassy track. In 75 metres, at a Y-fork, turn right, still on a grassy track, towards a bungalow.

Keep on the track for some way to eventually emerge onto a country road by a radio beacon station. Turn left on the road to a crossroads. Cross and continue on the road at the other side.

Where this road turns sharp left, leave it and continue forward on a wide gravel track. In 200 metres reach a tin byre by a reservoir on the left. Here turn right down a field edge with a ditch and hedge on your right.

Follow the field edge (there is no indication of the proper line of the path) right down to a footbridge in the bottom corner. Cross to a narrow road and a second footbridge opposite into the field ahead.

Go straight up the field, soon meeting a ditch on your right, and continue to a road. Turn left along the road to cross a railway and soon reach a T-junction. Turn left for 20 metres.

Go right off the road into a field. Bear diagonally right across the field aiming for a distant tall house (if no path through crops, follow the field edge around). At the far side of the field cross a farm bridge (not easily seen but halfway between the end of a treeline on your right and a tall bush on your left).

Continue diagonally left across the next field heading left of the tall farmhouse in the distance. At the far side of the field reach a dark waymark post at a junction where a path comes in on your left. Cross a bridge into the field ahead and go straight across to a metal fieldgate and exit onto a road.

Turn left along the road. Turn right down the first side road on your right and continue to a T-junction. Turn left into Brookland village. Follow the road past the church with the detached tower on your left, and turn left to reach the Royal Oak pub and restaurant and end of the section.

GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE

Section 3  Return

Brookland to Old Romney

Map: OS Explorer 125 Romney Marsh, Rye & Winchelsea

Distance/Time: 4 miles/ 2 hours

Start: The Royal Oak in Brookland; parking opportunities here.

Comment: More sheep pasture and large fields, sometimes with crops making crossing difficult; bridges, ditches and sometimes broken stiles to negotiate. Mud can be a challenge after rain. Atmospheric and isolated countryside.

With the Royal Oak on your left go forward along the road for a short way. Pass Boarman’s Lane coming in on left and follow the road around to the right. In a few paces turn left through a wooden kissing gate by a metal field gate. Immediately through turn left across the centre of a paddock to a stile in the far opposite corner. Continue out to a road.

Cross the road to a metal kissing gate and walk up the side of the field with trees and a ditch on your left. Where these swing left, go on straight across the field to a bridge and broken stile at the far side.

Cross the bridge and bear slightly diagonally across the next field, to a footbridge at the far side.  Cross and

continue in the same direction across a further field, passing a corner of a ditch ¾ of the way up. Continue across the last corner of the field to emerge onto a road at the far side.

Cross into a field and bear diagonally left across the centre. Aim towards farm buildings on the skyline. At the top of the field cross a footbridge.

Do not continue towards the farm buildings but bear diagonally left towards two wooden poles and emerge onto a road. Turn right a few paces and then left over a brick bridge.

Bear slightly diagonally right across the centre of a huge field (currently laid to turf) to a railway crossing. Do not go over the railway line, but bear right to cross into a pasture. Walk up the edge with the railway line on your left.

Cross a footbridge and continue up the edge of the field. Ignore a rail crossing by a farm. Keep on by the fence on the left to a stile. Cross the railway and a stile at the far side. Go straight ahead, away from the railway, with a wire fence, trees and a ditch on your right.

Emerge through wooden fieldgates onto a road at a bend. Immediately turn right through wooden gates and then a swing gate. Go diagonally left across the field to a footbridge in a cluster of three trees.

Continue diagonally left across the corner of the next field to emerge onto a road by a road junction. Cross the road into the field opposite and keep on in the same diagonal direction to a footbridge in bushes at the far side. Cross onto an abandoned road. Turn left for a mile.

On reaching farm buildings, bear right on an improved road which bends round towards a main road. Just before reaching the main road turn right down a side road. At the end turn right to the Rose & Crown pub and the start of the section.