Robust Rambles

Section 46

Dunbridge to Sherfield English

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 46  Out

Dunbridge to Sherfield English

Map: OS Explorer 131 Romsey

Distance: 4 miles/ 2.5 hours

Start: The Mill Arms pub and restaurant Dunbridge there is a large car park behind the pub.

Comment: A pleasant walk with much contrast of level, farmed fields and woodland. Good views. Some roadwalking but on quiet roads for short distances. There are stiles, some requiring agility.

With the Mill Arms pub behind, turn left, along Lockerley Road (that is, not over the railway) for 150 metres.

Immediately past a row of cottages on your left, turn left through double wooden gates into a garden. Bear right along the edge of the garden by a ditch on your right.

At the top end of the garden go through a tall gate (post rotten and very tricky) and on up the field edge with a hedge on your right.

Look out for a footbridge on your right. Cross and turn left.

The path soon veers away from the hedge on your right and continues up and across the highest part of the field to a stile at the top (parallel with power cable poles on the left).

Cross the stile and continue steeply uphill to a wooden power line pole. Follow the power lines to a second pole and a stile onto a farm track. Follow the track down to a road.

Turn left on the road and right at the fork soon reached. Keep on up this road, passing the next road junction to on up The Banks, for ¼ mile.

Pass a house on your right and continue up the road, looking out for a metal fieldgate on your right. Turn right onto a treelined track.

The path narrows but is easy to follow. At a junction go straight on (ignore path off right) and continue into woods.

Do not drop down left into a garden, but keep right, steeply uphill through trees, then down to a stile onto a road.

Cross the road slightly left to a red kissing gate. Go through and on up the side of a field. Ignore a stile on the left by a cottage and continue up to the top corner of the field.

Turn left through a metal kissing gate, then bear right around the field edge, up around and down to exit via a metal kissing gate by a metal fieldgate, onto a farm road.

Turn right on this for 200 metres, passing Gambledown Farm on the left midway.

Reach a meeting of four metal fieldgates and a metal kissing gate on your left. Turn left into a field entrance and go forward down the edge with a hedge on your left.

Halfway down pass through a gateway. Ignore a stile off left and keep on down with the hedge on your left. Look out for a metal fieldgate on your left.

Go left through this and immediately turn right, down to a metal kissing gate in the bottom corner.

Through this continue downhill with a wood on your left. At a corner of the wood, bear right, down and across a huge field, to woods below.

On reaching the wood, turn left, down the edge on a grassy track. Pass horse paddocks on your left (ignore a path off left) and reach a rusty fieldgate on your right at the bottom.

Snake right and left past the gate then on, downhill on a narrow path with a hedge on your left. Exit down steps onto a road. Turn right a few paces, then left onto a drive entrance, ignore the gravel drive off left and swing right to a metal fieldgate onto a grassy track between fences.

Keep on this, lover a stile then straight down to exit onto a main road. Cross to the Hatchet pub and the end of the section.

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 46  Return

Sherfield English to Dunbridge

Map: OS Explorer 131 Romsey

Distance: 5.5 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Hatchet Inn in Sherfield English. Large car park if intending to visit, otherwise little else.

Comment: A pleasant walk with much contrast of level, farmed fields and woodland. Good views. Short sections of roadwalking but on quiet roads. There are stiles, some requiring agility. Good pub at the Mill Arms in Dundridge.

With the Hatchet Inn behind, cross the main road and go up the entrance drive opposite through a wooden kissing gate by a metal fieldgate.

The drive soon becomes a grassy path. Keep straight up, ignoring a footpath off left. Continue over a stile by a metal fieldgate and emerge onto a road at the top.

Bear right a few paces then left, up steps, to an enclosed path by a hedge on your right.

Reach a rusty fieldgate on the right with farm buildings beyond. Snake right and left, to continue uphill on a broad grassy path by horse paddocks.

Near the top of the rise, turn right, downhill, on an open path alongside horse paddocks on your right.

Finally cross a field to the end of trees ahead. Pass through to reach a stile into a hilly pasture.

Keep on in the same direction, diagonally right, up and across the field to the very top corner. Pass a lone tree in the field at the far side and continue to a stile onto a road.

Turn right a few paces then left on a side road (Doctor’s Hill) for 150 metres. Where road bends right, by thatched Myrtle Cottage, turn left, up the bank onto a narrow path enclosed between fences.

Soon reach a junction and turn right on a narrow enclosed path downhill. At the bottom turn left back uphill.

At a T-junction at the top, turn right downhill again. Cross a stile by a metal fieldgate and continue down to exit onto a road junction.

Go forward over a side road to ‘Tidy Top’ and other houses to a main road. Turn left. Soon reach a Y-fork at The Square and bear right.

At the top of the rise, by the last house on the right, bear left, by metal fieldgates, onto a narrow path into woods.

At the top, turn sharp right to go along the side of a tall garden fence. Reach and go through a wooden kissing gate and go forward to a gravel drive. Turn left on this.

Where the drive swings sharp right, go straight ahead through a wooden gate and on up a narrow path between hedges.

Enter pastures and keep on up with the hedge on your left for a good distance.

On approaching a house, turn right along the top of the field to a stile and enter a narrow path leading to a road.

Turn right on the road for 50 metres (intermittent fast traffic) looking for a stile in the hedge over on the left (it might be possible to walk up the edge of the parallel field opposite).

Cross stile from the road and bear slightly diagonally right, uphill for ¼  mile passing a lone tree on your left.

At the top cross a farm track and enter the corner of a field. Go forward bearing slightly right, down and across the field to a stile in the bottom hedge.

Cross and continue along the edge of the next field with a hedge on your left.

Continue for some way up a clear path with woods and trees over on your left. Ignore a path off right.

Eventually emerge onto a gravel farm track. There is a slight diversion of the path here. Turn right on the gravel track for 20 metres, then left onto a grassy farm track. Go down a field towards distant woods.

Eventually turn left in the bottom corner, then uphill for 10 metres to a stile on the right.

Cross into a straight path, down and up through woods.

Emerge from the wood above houses. Turn left down a track which becomes a road and passes a car park on your left.

Soon reach a main road in Dunbridge with the Mill Arms pub on the corner and the start of the section.