Robust Rambles

Section 32

Singleton to Chilgrove

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 32  Out

Singleton to Chilgrove

Map: OS Explorer 120 Chichester

Distance: 5 miles/2.5 hours

Start: The Partridge Inn, parking in the village is very limited. Ask at the inn if intending to patronise.

Comment: An excellent walk with variety and views. Views mean hills and there are stiles along the way. A small amount of road walking on a very quiet country road. Generally very quiet and isolated countryside.

From the car park entrance of The Partridge Inn, go forward, away from the inn, over a side road, and on up the road ahead, with a tall flint wall on your left and cottages on your right. Curve through the village to reach a main road, the A286.

Bear left a few paces then carefully cross the road to a footpath going up a gravel drive with houses on your right and a cricket field on your left. Cross a brick bridge and go on to a wooden fieldgate. Go through and continue to go around the back of a pavilion.

Cross a stile by a metal fieldgate and continue up the edge to a second stile by a metal fieldgate.

Over this, go up a lane a short way to a third stile by a wooden fieldgate at the entrance to the National Trust’s Drovers Estate. Cross the stile and go up the enclosed path to Hat Hill.

Go across an old brick railway bridge and on to a set of wooden steps up a steep bank. Cross the stile at the top and continue for some way steeply up a narrow, overgrown, field edge path. Pass under power lines and continue to a stile at the top.

Go on over the brow of the hill on a wider green way. Keep on by trees and hedge on your left for ¼ mile, passing under power lines again.

Eventually, in the top corner of the field, bear left over a stile, then right along a narrow footpath between hedges with woods on your right and a field on the left (keep down the outside edge of the wood ignoring a path by the stile going into the wood).

At the end of the field go through bushes into the next field and continue down the edge of the wood, to exit at the very bottom, down a bank, onto a farm track. Turn left to go along to a road.

Turn right on the road. Where this swings left into Colworth Farm, go straight ahead on a chalky track.

Continue for some way downhill to pass an isolated pair of flint cottages, then uphill to a junction of paths at the edge of a wood. Here turn left on a farm track (currently by a long logpile) with woods on your right and views to the left.

Keep downhill on the track for ½ mile. Exit by wooden fieldgates onto a road junction. Turn right up the road to Chilgrove.

At a righthand bend, bear left off the road up a steep grassy lane. Cross a stile and continue up and over the brow of the hill. Drop down to a stile by a metal fieldgate and reach a road. Go forward, downhill, on the road.

Soon pass and ignore a bridleway off right. At the foot of the hill reach a T-junction. Turn right, still on the road, signed to Chilgrove.

Soon pass a farm on your right. On reaching a sharp left bend, stay on the road (ignoring tracks into West Dean Estate). At the top of a rise, ignore a footpath off right, and continue for some way down, then up and under power lines.

Where the road swings right, bear left on a track through bushes to the top of a field. Go straight down the centre of the field. At the bottom edge go straight on now with a hedge on your left. Keep on down for a good way.

At the bottom join a drive by cottages on your left. In a few paces the drive swings left. Go straight on into the top edge of a grassy area which looks like a former cricket field. Leave the route of the footpath and turn sharp right along the top edge of the field.

At the corner soon reached go straight on towards a main road with a white building in the distance. Walk up the grassy verge with the road on your left, to pass Stone Cottage.

Look for a path going on into bushes. Follow this into the field ahead and continue up the field edge parallel to the road. Soon reach The White Horse pub and restaurant and the end of the section.

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 32  Return

Chilgrove to Singleton

Map: OS Explorer 120 Chichester

Distance: 4.5 miles/2.5 hours

Start: The White Horse inn, this is the only parking so ask permission and enjoy the hospitality.

Comment: An easy walk with some stiles and hill climbing; half a mile of road walking out of Chilgrove but a very quiet lane. Sadly, there is no footpath link between West Dean and Singleton, so the last mile is along the busy A286. There is a pavement all the way but it is narrow in places and the traffic zooms at motorway speeds so take special care. The West Dean Gardens and the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum are off this section of road, both worth a visit. A bus (every 30 minutes in the week) runs along to Singleton, and you would not be blamed for taking it.

From The White Horse, retrace your steps across the car park and back across the field parallel to the road now on your right, through the bushes at far side and on along the verge past Stone Cottage.

Immediately past the cottage, bear right, to follow the road edge, then follow along the bottom edge of the old cricket field, still by the road, to the far corner.

Here reach a side road. Turn left on this passing a red post box and the entrances to North Post Office Cottage and Chilgrove Farm. Soon reach a cross roads.

Cross straight over and go up the road ahead for ½ mile. Eventually, at the top of a hill, reach a T-junction. Cross straight over to continue on a gravel farm track.

This soon goes downhill. At the bottom of the slope, opposite a metal fieldgate on your right, turn left off the track onto a feint path into the field on your left.

This path soon bears right to go steeply up the field to a stile in the hedge at the top. Cross and continue up the next field, aiming right of farm buildings. Reach another old stile at the top (on the Monarch’s Way).

Cross and bear left over the field to a farm outbuilding. Turn right to go up past the farm buildings (on your left), and reach a crossing of paths under power lines at the top.

Take the lefthand path going diagonally left across the large field on the left (this is currently not easy to find as there is a small crop of grass first with no path marked, but beyond is a cereal crop which has the path cut through it). Cross the field dropping down at the far side to trees and a waymark post.

Enter the wood and drop down to reach a cross track. Go over to continue in the same direction, now on a wider grassy track.

Reach a stile onto a road. Cross this and go forward up a track into trees. Soon reach a chalky vehicle track and go on, steeply uphill for some way.

At the top of the hill continue forward and downhill on the same track. At all junctions go forward and downhill.

At last leave the wood over a stile to go down the side of a meadow. At the bottom, by a scout camp, continue on a vehicle track under an old railway bridge. Soon emerge onto a main road in West Dean.

Turn left along the pavement for ¾ mile to return to Singleton. Eventually cross the road going right to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum and enter Singleton village. Turn first right to return to The Partridge Inn and the start of the section.