Robust Rambles

Section 57

Semley to Motcombe

Walk Details

Walk Instructions

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 57 Out

Semley to Motcombe

Map: OS Explorer 118 Shaftesbury

Distance: 4 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Benett Arms pub in Semley is open seven days a week and has a small car park otherwise there is plenty of opportunity for onroad parking in this village.

Comment: Although a walk of moderate distance the going can be slow as all the countryside is pasture. Paths are not evident on the ground and waymarking is generally good but occasionally patchy at key moments. Some roadwalking required where no relevant path is available, including the final stretch into Motcombe. The pub is well out of the village but there is an excellent village shop with coffee bar.

With The Benett pub behind, turn left upto the junction. Then right, up the road to pass the church on the left, the shop on the right and the school on the left.

Leave the main village passing set back houses on your right, the last one, just glimpsed, is a former chapel. Reach a substantial wooden pole in the verge radiating many wires. Just beyond is a waymark post pointing right. This is the path to start the walk. It points slightly right across to a hedge. Unfortunately, in between is very boggy ground. Go back past the pole and turn left up the chapel entrance.

On reaching the hedge, turn left along it looking for a gap through. Cross an old footbridge and stile into a large garden area. Go straight across on a very feint path, ignore various garden paths to the sides.

At the far side reach a stile into a long field. Cross and go forward, up the field, gradually swinging right to meet the end of the hedge at the top of the field.

Continue on past a barn on your right, following poles to the far end of the field. Find a broken stile and a footbridge hidden in the top corner, then follow a narrow path up to a drive to Semley Grange.

Turn right along the drive a few paces to a junction. Go straight over and up a gravel drive towards a red brick house.

In 10 metres turn left up to a metal fieldgate with a metal swing gate at the side. Go through. The bear slightly left to a second swing gate in the fence ahead. Enter a rising field.

Near the top corner, swing over right to a metal swing gate by a metal fieldgate into bushes. Go through to another stile (but with no footboards for climbing) into a field.

Continue up the field by the hedge on your left, to a fence, and on, into the next field. Then straight across an open field, not swinging right or left.

Find a metal fieldgate towards the far left corner and go through to a second gate then into a pasture.

Immediately turn left and follow the hedge on your left to the far end. Find a metal fieldgate on your left and go through to a junction with a track beyond and turn right.

The track becomes a drive then a road (with grass growing in the middle). Reach a T-junction and go right for ¼ mile. Ignore a small sideroad off left and keep up towards the sounds of a main road. Ignore a sideroad off right just before this main road.

Turn right along the main road. It is very busy so walk along the edge of the field. At the bottom end, by Porters Cottages, cross the road and turn left up the drive to Lower Listons Farm.

Where drive swings left to the farmhouse, keep forward, close to the hedge on your right, and follow a narrow way to the right of buildings.

Reach and go through a metal fieldgate and then cross to a wooden swing gate into a leady path called Woodcocks Road.

Reach a stile into a field and keep forward by the hedge on your right. At the far end, go through a metal fieldgate (there is a stile down on the left, very overgrown) onto a gravel track by a railway bridge.

Turn left a few paces, until level with the overgrown stile, just before a pond on the left. Here turn right, onto a feint path, into bushes. Go carefully through a wet area to a footbridge then stile into a field.

Bear diagonally left across the field, not too far from the hedge on your left, passing a pond in trees up on the right. Reach a metal fieldgate.

Go through and turn slightly diagonally right uphill to four small chestnut trees. Pass these and continue, slightly right, down to a wooden swing gate (ignore all fieldgates).

Go through to a farm track and on just a few paces before turning left through a green metal fieldgate into a pasture.

Ignore a path off right and go forwards, directly away from the farm, initially with a wire fence on your left. Keep on, straight up the open field, to a metal fieldgate in the top hedge.

Go through to an undulating pasture. Turn diagonally right here. Go up by a fence on your right then on up the open field to a metal swing gate in the hedge at the far side (this might not be the line of path on the OS map).

Bear slightly left across the field ahead to a metal fieldgate at the bottom (redundant stile at the side). Go through the gate and on across to a footbridge protected by two metal swing gates.

Continue up the side of the field ahead to a metal fieldgate on your left. Here turn diagonally right across the field to houses and a stile out to a road.

Turn right for ¼ mile along the road down to a T-junction by a church in the middle of Motcombe. Turn left to the village community shop and Coffee Bar and the end of the section.

Greatstone to Gillingham Robust Ramble

Section 57 Return

Motcombe to Semley

Map: OS Explorer 118 Shaftesbury

Distance: 4 or 5 miles/ 3 hours

Start: The Shop and Café in Motcombe. There is parking just up the road at the Memorial Hall and recreation ground.

Comment: Although a walk of moderate distance the going can be slow as all the countryside is pasture. Unfortunately there is a very short section along a very busy main road with no verges. HIVIZ WAISTCOATS are strongly recommended. An ALTERNATIVE ROUTE is described but will add a mile to the distance.

With the Village Shop behind, turn right up the road to reach the Memorial Hall and the recreation ground on your left. Turn left up the far side, past the children’s play area to a metal kissing gate at the top.

Go through and follow the path over the field ahead to emerge onto a road at the far side.

Turn right a short distance to pass a farm. Just before the last building on the left, turn left on a bridleway into the buildings. Go up the farmyard and through a gate into a long rising field.

Bear left as you walk up, nearing the fence on your left as you go. At the very top, exit through a metal fieldgate, into a rising meadow.

Keep on up to a metal swing gate in the top corner. Here join the alternative route(an extra mile) or continue below.

(ALTERNATIVE ROUTE: Immediately through the swing gate, turn diagonally left, up to the very top corner, passing the garden and buildings of Kingsettle Farm on your right. Find a stile in trees by the top corner and cross this and a footbridge and another stile into a sloping pasture. Go straight down to a fieldgate in the bottom hedge. Bear slightly right, straight across the field to the far righthand corner(this is now on the outward route). Go through a green metal fieldgate and bear right to a wooden swinggate into the field on the right. Bear left up to and past a group of four chestnut trees on your left. Continue across to a metal fieldgate into field ahead then on bearing right to find a stile then footbridge into a wet area of scrub. Go through to emerge onto a farm track. Cross the stile opposite (or go left to a fieldgate on your right) into a field, and go on along the top edge with a railway beyond. Keep on in a straight line through a small wood, then on along the edge of farm buildings, to continue up the entrance drive to a main road. Cross with care and turn right along the field edge. Turn left up the first sideroad. Stay on road past next sideroad off left. Ignore the next sideroad off right, then remain on the road for another ¼ mile to reach Hatts Farm at the top of the hill)

Through the swing gate, go straight up the field ahead, passing a garden and farmhouse on the left, and exit through a metal fieldgate. Continue up under power lines.

Go through wooden gates at the top and on across the brow of the hill to a further set of wooden gates. Meet a drive and turn right along it.

Soon bear right at the end onto a very busy main road. THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS MOMENT. THERE ARE NO VERGES AT THIS POINT. WEAR A HI-VZ WAISTCOAT. NO MORE THAN 2 OR 3 PEOPLE ON THE ROAD AT A TIME. PRESS INTO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD IF VEHICLES COME FROM BEHIND.

LOOK AND LISTEN FOR TRAFFIC, ESPECIALLY FROM THE LEFT.

QUICKLY CROSS THE ROAD AND TURN RIGHT.

Move swiftly, a short distance up the road, to a side turning to the left, to Hart Hill Farm. This turning is easily within sight. Turn left down it.

Keep down this road for 200 metres. Past a house on the right on the top of a rise, drop down 30 metres to a wooden fieldgate into a field on your right.

Go straight down the field to a wooden fieldgate in the bottom hedge (the PROW actually goes 15 metres to the right of this point where a single plank footbridge crosses the stream up to a field at the other side).

However, go through the fieldgate and turn immediately right to go through a second, metal, fieldgate into a rising pasture. Keep by the bottom fence on your right, along to a stile in the fence.

Here, do not cross !, but turn left to walk up the field towards a farm at the top with a prominent telegraph pole in the top corner.

Cross a stile by the pole, onto a road and turn right. Pass a house on the right, then, at the brow of the hill, turn left into the yard of Hatts Farm. Go down the yard, through gates to enter a field.

Basically, go straight down the field, bearing slightly right to pass a huge oak, and on, to the bottom. Go through a gateway and on down the edge to a metal fieldgate.

Keep on, down to the very bottom with a wire fence on your right.

At the very end, squeeze right, around the end of the wire fence, and go along to metal kissing gates by a metal fieldgate.

Again, go straight up the field keeping power lines then a garden hedge on your left. Reach a metal kissing gate between metal fieldgates.

Go through and turn sharp left (disregard the waymark direction), along the edge of the field, under power lines and on to a set of black metal gates.

Go through and cross a drive to a black metal kissing gate opposite.

Through this continue up the field edge ahead by a fence on your right.

Reach a metal kissing gate by a metal fieldgate. Go straight down the field ahead to a metal fieldgate visible at the bottom.

Through this gate, turn immediately right through a gap, over a stream and into a rising pasture. Bear diagonally right up this field to the top opposite corner (pass a small concealed pond on your right, near the top, as you go).

In this top corner, negotiate a rusty metal fieldgate across the corner to reach a metal swing gate. Then go across a pasture to a metal fieldgate ahead.

Through this, cross to a metal swing gate into a narrow path enclosed between a wire fence and trees. Emerge onto a farm track and turn left.

Reach a road and turn left all the way back into Semley. Pass the shop and the church and turn left to return to The Benett arms pub and the start of the section.