Section 7
Clayhill to Staplecross
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 7 Out
Clayhill to Staplecross
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings & Bexhill
Distance/Time: 5 miles/2.5 hours
Start: The Rose & Crown at Clayhill. Limited parking opportunities, possibly by adjacent Beckley Church.
Comment: Some road walking, quiet country roads, many stiles, almost all broken or rotten, poor waymarking in places, a path completely gone, some fine views across the Weald to the North Downs. The return section has some demanding walking so allow plenty of time if following the circular walk.
With the Rose & Crown pub on your right, walk along the main road a short distance to a Y-fork; bear left. In a short distance bear right onto a side road called New Road. Follow this for nearly a mile to a crossroads with a main road. Turn right up the main road with great care (it appears that local people go into the rough grassland on the right and walk up next to the road).
Reach a timber framed house on the left. Just past it, turn left along Mill Lane. Continue to the end to emerge in a hamlet called Mill Corner. Join a road and continue in the same direction through the houses. At the end, a road merges in from the left; continue on in the same direction for ¼ mile.
Reach a junction with a side road on the right. Here turn left off, the road, over a ditch and up a bank, to a field.
Go across the field bearing slightly right of the wood ahead. Keep going across the field to a stile in the far opposite corner. Go down to cross a road and up the other side to a wooden kissing gate; enter a field.
Walk forward with a wire fence on your right. Keep on by the fence as it turns right at a corner. Continue to the far corner of the field and a wooden kissing gate into a wood. Go down the bank and continue through the wood bearing slightly left.
Continue uphill through the wood. Keep to the main path ignoring any paths off left. At the top emerge into a caravan park. Keep forward on a gravel vehicle track with hedge and mobile homes on your left.
On reaching the shop and reception on your left, bear right into the area for touring caravans. Walk across it to a stile at the far side into a field. Go forward across the field, parallel to the hedge on your left. In the corner ahead cross a stile down to a road.
Turn left steeply up the road. At the top turn right off the road over a stile (broken) and go down a broad leafy path through coppiced woods. At the bottom cross a stile by the corner of a garden and go forward on a gravel path. Soon leave this to bear left down to a footbridge in the bottom corner of the field. Cross this and go up a bank into a field.
It is possible to go left up the edge of the field to a stile in the fence on the left at the top (actually a section of wooden fencing with mesh across it, there is no step). To follow the right of way to the same place, bear right across the corner of the field to a corner of woodland.
On reaching this continue up the side of the field with the wood on your right. At the end of the wood turn sharply left up and across the field to the highest point. Here turn sharply left again and go over to a corner of the field and a stile (actually just a section of wooden fence covered with mesh). Cross into a rough area.
Go ahead uphill, up a rough muddy farm track, passing a pond on your left. At the very top keep on in the same direction, currently through wooden fences, to a corner of fields and a three plank bridge. Cross this and bear right up the field edge with a hedge on your right.
Soon cross another footbridge and broken stile and continue along, with the hedge on your right. Soon pass a house and reach a corner. Here leave the field over a stile onto a drive. Bear left out to a road. Turn right along pavement for ¼ mile.
Just past a little pond on your right, reach a stile on the right by a telegraph pole. Cross into a field and walk away from the road down the field.
In the bottom left corner cross a footbridge and stile hidden in the hedge. In the next field follow the edge with a wire fence on your right. Reach a stile and go right, over it, down a bank, to a second stile into a field.
Cross this field to a further stile by a rusty field gate. Cross and continue with a ditch, hedge and fence on your left to yet another stile and fieldgate. Cross and turn left over the field towards a house. Go down the side of the house to a stile and fieldgate onto a road.
Turn left, with care, up the road into Staplecross. Pass a school and reach a road junction by the Cross Inn and end of the section.
GREATSTONE TO GILLINGHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 7 Return
Staplecross to Clayhill
Map: OS Explorer 124 Hastings & Bexhill
Distance/Time: 5 miles/3 hours
Start: The Cross Inn, Staplecross
Comment: A tough return with paths that are difficult to find and many twists and turns. Many instructions demand careful attention. Again, there are broken stiles, a missing path, but lots of variety in features, terrain and changes of view, horse paddocks make uncomfortable walking and unfortunately are very destructive of terrain.
With the Cross Inn on your right, the cross roads is ahead. Turn right along the B2165 to Northiam. Walk along between houses, passing a playing field on the left. Reach the stile, on the left, by the telegraph pole, used on the outward route.
Opposite notice Braban’s Cottage. Turn right off the road on a drive down the side of the cottage to a setback house. It is not very welcoming but there is a tiny waymark disk to indicate a right of way. Go through a very large and solid wooden gate (if this way is blocked go further along the road to a stile by a metal fieldgate; cross into a lane and go down to a horse paddock; this is not a public right of way).
To follow the proper route, go down the side of Braban’s Cottage. Just in front of the setback house, turn sharp left through a small gate into an enclosed path. Follow this to the end and exit through another small gate onto a track. Turn right and go down to a stile by a metal fieldgate into a horse paddock.
Walk down the paddock past a lone telegraph pole mid-field, to a metal fieldgate and bridge hidden in the bottom corner. Cross and bear right into the bottom corner of a neglected area. Turn left uphill, up the edge, with fence and treeline on your right.
Look carefully as you climb for a set-back stile on your right, just before overhead wires. Cross the stile into a field and turn left uphill to a stile at the top. Cross into the next field. Follow the hedge on your left up to the top corner and cross a further stile into an enclosed path.
At the end cross a stile by a metal fieldgate into a large field. Continue with a hedge on your left up to a corner. Cross a stile into a field with a farm up on the right. Here, turn sharp left down the field edge with a fence on your left, past a pond to a stile in the corner.
Cross and bear left to a stile in the far opposite corner. Go ahead along the edge with a ditch and fence on your left to a footbridge and stile. Cross and turn sharp right, down a grassy track with a wooden fence on your left.
Continue downhill for some way to a broken stile by a metal fieldgate and emerge onto a road. Turn right. In 50 metres reach a stile by a metal fieldgate on your left and turn left off the road. Go down the edge of the field with a hedge on your left. At the very bottom, cross a stile and footbridge into a wood. Continue up the other side into a field. Turn sharp left along the edge.
Stay on the field edge as it bears right uphill, passing a gully between trees on your left. Go up to the very top of the field (may differ slightly from OS map) and reach a concrete farm track by tall hedges. Turn left.
On approaching farm buildings, turn sharp right up a wide concrete roadway. Follow around the buildings onto an enclosed grassy track (ignore stile off right). Follow the edge of the garden on your left, past a pond, to reach a gate and stile at the corner of an orchard.
Cross into a field. Go diagonally left across the field to the hedge at the far side (currently a sight post by the hedge to aim for). Turn right along the edge with the hedge on your left towards a pylon. Reach a pond.
Immediately past the pond, turn sharp right in front of the pylon (do not go past it). Ignore a stile over on the left behind houses. Go directly across the field to the hedge at the far side, under power lines, to a stile hidden by trees at the far side.
Cross and bear right down the field. At the bottom of two large fields, drop down steps onto a road. Go straight over and through a gap into a large field. Turn right and look for a farm set up on a hill in the distance. Aim for the righthand side of the farm buildings and walk down the length of the field (currently not marked through crops) to a footbridge at the bottom far end.
Cross into a field. Go straight up the field to a gateway and homemade gate. In the next field bear left, steeply up, and across to the top left corner, by a house. Exit through a wide gap onto a lane.
Turn left (ignore kissing gate opposite), and walk through the farm buildings. Ignore a footpath off left between outbuildings. Stay on the main concrete roadway through the buildings. This becomes an earthen track. Stay on it as it bears right downhill, past the last house on your right, a converted oast.
The track soon bears left through a wooden fieldgate into a field. Follow the grassy track towards power lines. At the end of the field, go through a gateway and on along the edge of a wood on your left. Go through another gateway with a pylon beyond. The path now basically disappears.
Turn sharp right away from the pylon. Walk across the corner of the field to a short section of wooden fencing at the far side with a wood beyond. (The path should enter the wood here and go down to a stream and cross to the field the other side, but there is no trace).
Instead, turn left, along the field edge, and keep along it all the way to the far bottom corner. Just before, cross a small stile and bear right, down through trees, to a small stream. There is no bridge and it is necessary to jump the stream.
Go up the steeply rising field ahead, then on across it, and on to the furthest end corner. Here, cross a concrete farm bridge by a telegraph pole. Turn right along the bottom of the valley to a wooden fieldgate at the far end. Cross into a muddy paddock and continue to a broken stile by a wooden fieldgate at the far end. Emerge onto a busy road.
Cross with care and go ahead down the drive opposite. In 25 metres turn left off the drive over a footbridge and broken stile into a rising field. Go up the field edge and around the top to a stile with pylon beyond.
Cross this broken stile and head towards the pylon. Follow a line of poles to pass a pond on your right. Now bear slightly diagonally right across the field, to the right of the pylon, and under power lines, to a stile in the hedge at the far side.
Cross to a wicket gate, and go on along an enclosed path with a wire fence on your left. Pass a pond and turn left, uphill, to a wooden gate. Follow this around a building to a stile and footbridge into woods.
Pass a pond on your left and then follow barbed wire on your right on a twisting path through the woods to a corner of a field. Here turn left, away from the field, to continue up the woods to a broken stile and footbridge on the top edge.
Cross and turn right down the edge of a field with the wood on your right. Keep on down to the very bottom corner (ignore a footpath off left halfway down). Go right through a metal fieldgate and turn left to follow a hedge on your left to Great Stent Farm in the distance.
Eventually exit through a metal fieldgate onto a farm road. Turn right a few paces towards the timber framed farmhouse, then left just in front of it, up another farm road towards barns.
Pass between the farm buildings to a sheep pen. Bear right across pens to go up by a line of old car tyres into a field. Follow a line of poles up to a stile. Cross and continue up and over the top of the rise to a broken stile.
Now bear left down to a broken stile near a corner. Cross and go on down, with a hedge on your right, to a footbridge at the bottom.
Cross and keep on up through a wicket gate. Pass a pond and cottage and continue up the entrance drive. Immediately through the main gateway, turn sharp right through a wicket gate and continue across a garden area to a further wicket gate. Go through a final wicket gate into a field.
Turn left up the field edge to an old stile at the top and emerge onto a rough vehicle track. Turn left along this to a junction with a drive. Turn right on this and follow it to a road. Turn right up the road to eventually reach the road junction with the Rose and Crown beyond and the start of the section.
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