Forest Row chicken run - 7 miles

27th December 2020

I wasn't sure this walk was going to happen as we had been visited by storm Bella overnight which had caused a certain amount of chaos on the roads but the sun was shining and we decided to risk it.

The walk starts in Forest Row and goes north along the old railway line.  This is part of a ten mile route known as the Forest Way which runs from Groombridge to East Grinstead.  We walk the last few miles from Forest Row to East Grinstead.  

Trees had their own lakes this morning

This path is flat and easy to walk
It is also a little bit on the boring side but there was some interesting gardens to look into.

This family share their back garden with their pig.

Whilst whoever owns this field has an abandoned plane.

. 

The pathway was very busy - not a problem usually but a bit daunting in the current circumstances.  However everyone was very careful to keep to their side of the path.

Once you get to East Grinstead you turn off and walk through a housing estate and down a short section of the A22.  Today the road was closed due to a fallen tree.  Most drivers going south were going up onto the curb to go past but a local resident was complaining to drivers and bullied the little white car into turning around and finding a new route.

It is only a short section on the A22 and you soon turn off for a more cross country walk....

.....and lots and lots of mud!

The path has been filled with stones to make it clearer to follow and less muddy - sadly however we weren't going in that direction!

Not a great photo of Stoke Brunswick which is shown on the map as a school but from research it appears it is now a private house.  As a school famous pupils include Winston Churchill (except he attended whilst the school was located in Hove) and Jonathan King.  The school went up for sale in 2009 for £6 million for the part medieval, part Tudor property set in 28 acres.

Home stretch!  After Stoke Brunswick we follow a paved road for a while and then turn off onto this path for the last mile or so.  Which takes us back to the Forest Way route and the end of the walk.

The bits through the fields were very very muddy and we had to make our way through a lot of big puddles.  At the end of the walk my feet were still lovely and dry thanks to my boots.  This is my second pair of the same boots - the first pair lasted for ten years until the sole fell off them mid walk last year.  As a vegetarian buying walking boots could be difficult except for the Vegetarian Shoe Shop in Brighton.  I really like these boots, they are comfy and as I said they keep my feet nice and dry.  (No one reads this blog so no one pays me to say that - I really do like my boots!)

The local pub was of course closed but Java & Jazz was doing a very popular takeaway service.

The GPX of this walk can be downloaded here and you are welcome to try it out for yourself.  Please remember that you walk it at your own risk and don’t forget to follow the Countryside Code.

If you do download the walk I ask that you make a £1 donation to my fundraising which can be found here.

Many thanks and enjoy this walk. 

 

Sotuh Downs loop - Bo Peep to Bishopstone - 7 miles

 25th December 2020

Christmas Day in a very strange world.  Fortunately for me I am 'bubbled' with my daughter so Christmas Day saw us walking together on the South Downs.  We wouldn't usually have time for such a long walk but with not much happening today we decided to make the most of the winter sunshine.

This walk starts at the Bo Peep car park which is a car park with a view!  There is a steep climb to the car park so I never liked driving there in my last car which had very little power but it's great in my new(ish) car.  It is a free car park but it is small - it only takes about 15 cars.  On Christmas Day it was packed out and we had to park at the side of the road facing the view below.  Such a hardship!

I did the planned walk back to front because the most obvious footpath turned out to be the end of the walk and it made more sense to keep walking in that direction.  It is a very nice, easy to walk path which goes past the intriguingly named Five Lord Burgh tumulus.  

We spotted what we think are WW2 bomb craters
scattered around the South Downs

We could see Brighton and the i360 in the distance

The walk loops around to Bishopstone and then walks through the very pretty village.  Bishopstone was connected to the See of Canterbury and the name means dwelling place of the bishop - or more succinctly the bishops farm.  The village is tiny with about 200 residents but it is surrounded by Newhaven and Seaford.

The war memorial in the church includes 'Nell Standish-Barry' on the list of those who died in the 1939-45 war.  Eleanor, who was better known as Nell, was born in India and grew up in Ireland.  After WW1 she moved to London but would spend her summers in Seaford when she would attend the church of St Andrews in Bishopstone.  She was a very exotic woman who claimed to be a clairvoyant and after successfully predicting the death at sea of Lord Kitchener she became a bit of a celebrity.  She also predicted her own death by a 'fiery streak' and it seems she died when her home was hit by a doodlebug but other reports were that she was only missing or had died in a car accident.  The official wording of her death is that she was believed to have be killed through war operations.  If you want to find out more read Kevin Gordon's account of her life and mysterious death.

A local farmer getting in the Christmas spirit

A beautiful blue sky with a very clear moon
(you might need to squint to see it!)

Can we go home now for Christmas dinner?

Find the route here.  As always you walk at your own risk.

Hartfield north walk

Covid restrictions mean that my walking group is on hold again and after two close encounters with the virus I am being very sensible (unusually for me).  So here's a walk I did earlier this year.

Back on the 6th March we started the walk but very quickly found that we could not go any further as the path had become a lake.

We did the walk again on the 10th July in glorious sunshine and it turned out to be a lovely walk when it isn't underwater!

This walk heads north from Hartfield and meanders through some lovely countryside and past some very nice properties.  There are a few hills to climb but the reward is some stunning views.

The walk took us past Bolebroke Castle (not to be confused with Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire).  Bolebroke is a fifteen century hunting lodge which was build around 1480.  It is thought that Henry VIII would stay there whilst hunting for wild boar and deer in Ashdown Forest and it is just five miles from Hever Castle which was home for Anne Boleyn so he no doubt found it very convenient for courting her.

There are some lovely photos online of the castle which was restored after being vacant for a few years.

Bolebroke Castle

At the time of this walk pubs were allowed to open and serve drinks so we ended our walk with a very welcome drink at The Anchor in Hartfield.

GPX of the walk can be found here.  As always you follow at your own risk but my suggestion is not to try it after a lot of rain!

Devils Dyke walk - 9 miles

 5th December 2020

Devils Dyke is a very beautiful spot in Sussex with views which covers miles and miles of stunning Sussex scenery.

Devils Dyke is the country’s longest, deepest & widest dry valley and you can either believe it exists as the result of the ice age 10,000 years ago or that it was dug overnight by the devil who planned to drown the local residents.  The devil however was foiled in his plot because he made enough noise to wake up a little old lady who lit her candle which caused her cockerel to crow.  The devil thought that the morning had arrived and ran off leaving the local residents safe & giving us a lovely location for a walk.

The walk begins along the South Downs Way towards Upper Beeding.   We go near the lost medieval village of Perching [///crumbles.performed.dwelled]  (it was appropriately perched on the side of Perching Hill) but it was abandoned so long ago that there is nothing left to see.  It would have been a very difficult place to live high up on the Downs & changes in farming methods probably resulted in the few remaining residents deciding they would be better off elsewhere.

Olly introducing himself to some snoozing bulls

We passed a small surviving settlement at Truleigh Hill which had a newly built property up for sale.  I checked on Rightmove and it was up for sale for £775,000 (three bed chalet).  A very exposed location, nowhere near any shops and a good chance of being snowed in.  I would love living there so if I win the lottery any time soon I may well move there!

On the other side of the South Downs Way are the remains of a medieval motte & bailey [///upholding.unlucky.grumbling].  This was possibly constructed shortly after the Norman Conquest and was still in use in the 12th century.  Again there is not much left to see.

As we headed towards Truleigh Hill on the first part of our walk we were reminded of the Rudyard Kipling poem:

The Weald is good, the Downs are best-

I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.

Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,

They were once and they are still.

Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry

Go back as far as sums 'll carry.

Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring

They have looked on many a thing,

And what those two have missed between 'em

I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.

Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down

Knew Old England before the Crown.

Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood

Knew Old England before the Flood;

And when you end on the Hampshire side-

Butser's old as Time and Tide.

The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,

You be glad you are Sussex born!

I am not Sussex born (neither was Kipling) but it is a truly beautiful place to live.

At Beeding Hill we turn off the South Downs Way into Monarchs Way and made our way to towards the A27 at the Southwick Tunnel which we went over the top off before taking a sharp left turn back up towards Devils Dyke partially along the Sussex Border Path passing by another long lost settlement; this time the Iron Age enclosure of Thundersbarrow [///little.jeep.presented].  This site which was probably occupied until the Roman period has now mostly disappeared  as a result of ploughing.  Archaeologists have found evidence of the site being used (in addition to agricultural uses) from the Bronze Age through to WW2 when slit trenches were dug as part of an army training ground.

The weather was interesting on this walk.  At the start of this blog is a photo taken just before we started our walk and doesn't it look lovely weather for December but don't be fooled - it didn't last!  Having had a very wet walk just a few days earlier I was relieved that there was only a 10% chance of rain according to the Met Office forecast.  Hah!  They got it very very wrong.  We had rain and hail for the last half of the walk.  We got very very wet.

Just in case you don't believe me - you can see the sleet (look closely!)

Whilst we were being pelted we could see sunshine in the distance!

I don't like this mum, can we go home now

A lovely hilly walk which was mostly on footpaths (not so much mud!) but difficult to enjoy when contending with the weather.  I will have to go back when it is a bit warmer and drier.

There is a gpx file for this walk but there are lots and lots of walks from Devils Dyke and it is nice just to go for a wander around.  It is a National Trust location so if you are not a member you have to pay for parking (various amounts depending how long you plan to stay up to £6 for the day).  There are other free car parks further afield.

What Three Words

 I often use What Three Words to give a location but not everyone is familiar with W3W so I thought I should explain.

There are lots of ways to give location - street addresses - postcode - map reference - longitude and latitude and now there is W3W.  Street addresses and postcodes are not always very specific and the middle of a field doesn't usually have an address whilst longitude and latitude & map references can be very specific but they aren't particularly user friendly.

W3W have divided the world into 3m square units and each 3m square has three  words to uniquely identify it.

///react.spaces.cups is the Market Cross in Chichester

///could.grants.palms is the i360 in Brighton

There is a free app which can be downloaded to phones which enable you to find out where in the world the three words locate to or the reverse, give the three words for a specific location or your current location.   There is also the W3W website.

Emergency services are starting to use W3W and it can be invaluable if they need to find a more obscure location.  When my car broke down last week I was able to use W3W to give my location to the recovery company.

Everyone should have this app on their phone - you've no idea when it could be useful and if you break a leg whilst out walking in the wilds of Sussex (and please don't!) it is a great way to give your location to 999.

If I haven't explained this very well then see the BBC News explain it.

A disappearing walk along the cliffs at Fairlight - 8 miles

 14th December

Six of us did this walk which started from Cliff End just outside of Fairlight.  There is a tiny public car park there [///rice.collision.warthog] which is free but I suspect it will be very busy in the summer.  Ordnance Survey says it's a 7.5 mile walk but all of us were showing a step count of about 8.5 miles at the end.  I might have made a mistake during the walk but it certainly wasn't a miles worth!  

The walk starts by heading inland and wanders through Pett and Guestling Green before turning and making its way back to the sea and along the cliff path through Fairlight Cove.

There are two interesting things about this tiny village perched on the cliffs - one is that the cliffs are being eroded at quite a fast rate and houses have fallen into the sea.  The other is that the beach is known for its fossils and there are dinosaur footprints imprinted into the sandstone.  Visiting the beach is on my list of things to do but as our visit was in December it won't be of any surprise to know it was raining which made finding any fossils or dinosaur feet unappealing!

See here for more information about Fairlight and fossils.

Sea defenses were built along the coast in the 1990s to try to save other properties from falling into the sea but so far as I can tell these have had mixed results.

The start of the cliff walk

There used to be a house here!

You can see how close some houses are to the edge and the cliff defenses at the foot of the cliffs

Bess looking towards Cliff End and Pett Level

The name Fairlight comes from the Saxon meaning 'fern clearing'.  It's mentioned in the Domesday book as Ferlega and by 1712 as Fairly which is how the name is still pronounced locally.

The village of Pett was originally 'Pytte' and likely to have been named after the pit or hollow in the ground towards Pett Level.

Not being so familiar with this part of Sussex I had always thought the village of Guesting was one village but as it turns out it is several villages/hamlets - we walked through Guestling Green but there is also Guestling Thorn a few miles further north.

We walked past Peter James Lane which as a fan of his books I wondered if it had been named after the author.  So far as I can tell from the internet, it isn't.  The author doesn't think so and I have found a page written recently but referring to it as Peter James Lane in the 1940s.  I haven't found out why it is named as it is but until told otherwise I am going to assume it is named for a long dead resident also called Peter James.

When we started the walk we could see what looked like a castle tower in the distance but couldn't see anything to say what it was on the map.  We could see glimpses of it every now and again but couldn't figure out what it was until our walk took us right past the building.

As you can see from the photo it was raining when we went past Fairlight Hall so it's not a great image of what does appear to be a very striking building.  My daughter recognised it when we were up close as she has been there to Riding for the Disabled which is based there.  The house is private but the grounds are open to the public on occasion and they run charitable events there.  Have a look at their website for much better images.

Here is the GPX for this walk - as always it is up to you to keep safe on these walks, to follow the Countryside Code - no complaints please if you get lost or don't enjoy the walk!

I thoroughly enjoyed the walk which had a mix of countryside and seaside as well as some drama with the disappearing cliffs.  There was not too much road walking and where the walk did go along a busy main road there are good paths to keep you safe.  This walk also has the benefit of a public toilet as you go into Fairlight - always handy!

Finally some more photos...

Arriving in the village of Pett

Olly leading the way through fields

and woods

We walked through a lot of horses fields

Some very nice converted farm buildings with some seasonal guards outside

Fairlight halls grounds with an interesting sculpture (flying helmet or beetle?)

Interesting!