Section 4
Lymne to Burmarsh
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 4 Out
Lymne to Burmarsh
Map: OS Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Distance/Time: 3 miles/2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the ‘County Member’ pub in Lympne. There is parking at the pub if using the facilities, some on street and possibly the village hall.
Comments: A walk of enormous contrast with panoramic views from the high ridge, then equally wideranging views from the marshland below. There are steep climbs and many stiles in a range of conditions. There is a pleasant section of the Royal Military Canal.
With the ‘County Member’ pub on your right, walk back along the main road. In a short distance, turn right down a side road to Lympne Castle. Where this roadway swings left, by the Old Castle Stores, go straight on, on a track between walls (part of the Saxon Shore Way).
Stay on this path as it bears right to continue along the top of the ridge with extensive views across Romney Marsh. Ignore a path going off left steeply downhill and stay on the Saxon Shore Way for half a mile.
This is a pleasant enclosed path. Cross a drive and keep on along the top edge of a wood. Soon cross another drive and continue in the same direction to reach a road junction.
Here turn left, downhill, on a bridleway which starts as an asphalt drive. At a wire gate ahead, bear left, then right downhill again, but this time on a rougher and sometimes muddy track, between animal enclosures. After some way, emerge onto the towpath of the Royal Military Canal. Turn right along this for ½ mile to reach Aldergate Bridge.
On reaching Aldergate Bridge, turn left to cross it. Go on, away from the canal, down a narrow roadway, to a T-junction with a country road. Turn left along this road a short distance, looking for rusty metal fieldgates on your right. Go through and walk away from the road with a ditch on your right, between vast fields on both sides.
Ignore two farm bridges off right, and keep on, with the ditch on your right. On approaching farm buildings ahead, reach a third bridge. Turn right over this and immediately left to continue forward with the ditch now on your left (currently there are waymark posts here).
Pass the farm and soon reach a metal gate on your left by a broken stile. Go through and on to a second gate and through this to a road called Shear Way. Turn right down this.
At the end reach the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ pub in Burmarsh and the end of the section.
FOLKESTONE TO FARNHAM ROBUST RAMBLE
Section 4 Return
Burmarsh to Lympne
Map: OS Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Distance/Time: 3 miles/ 2 hours
Start: The walk starts from the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ pub in Burmarsh village. On road parking in the village.
Comments: Some country road walking to start with, then across open fields, to the Royal Military Canal at West Hythe. A stiff climb up Lympne Hill, then a short section on a very busy road, to return to the start.
With the ‘Shepherd and Crook’ on your left, go back up Shear Lane, past the front door of the pub. Almost immediately, turn right down an enclosed path between garden fences. This soon continues along a field edge
with garden fences on your right. Where these end, go on across the field, aiming just right of a bungalow. Emerge onto a road.
Turn left along this road for ½ mile. Thus is quite a busy road. Pass Great Lathe Farm with its business and leisure units (and café), and continue to Eaton Farm on the left.
Here two footpaths go off left. Take the righthand one. Cross a wooden fence (there is a waymark but no stile) into a horse paddock. Bear diagonally left across to two poor stiles in the hedge at the far side and cross into a large field.
Cross this field in the same direction parallel to telegraph wires and poles over on your left. There is a road over on your right.
At the far side cross a footbridge onto a road. Turn left for 20 metres, then right, off the road, over a ditch into a field. Bear diagonally left across this field to a footbridge at the far side.
Cross and continue across the next field to a metal fieldgate at the far side with a road beyond. Do not go through, but turn right along the field edge to a footbridge by a pole.
Cross this and continue over a field aiming left of a bungalow with Lympne Castle above in the distance. Pass into a further pasture and bear sharp left to a stile onto a road. Turn right to pass the Botolph’s Bridge Inn on your right.
Go forward over a side road and cross a bridge. Immediately turn right over a high stile and turn left along the field edge for some way.
In ¼ mile, where the hedge and road on your left swing away left, keep straight on, across the field, to a footbridge. Cross and turn immediately left over a farm bridge, and on, down the edge of the field with a ditch on your left.
Keep on down with a high ridge in the distance, to finally reach a metal fieldgate and robust metal stile, out to a road. Cross to a metal kissing gate in the hedge opposite.
Through this, bear left across a field, past a pole, to a footbridge by a wooden fence. Cross and continue up a field edge with a ditch then fence on your right, towards a long, low industrial building.
At the top corner, bear left, still on the field edge, around past the industrial building to the next corner and exit on an enclosed path by houses, out to a road. Bear right to cross a bridge over the Royal Military Canal.
Continue up past a works and a house. Cross a side road, called St. Mary’s Road, to a kissing gate just right of a white painted garage at the foot of a garden. Go steeply uphill close to the hedge on your left. Eventually go through a small metal squeeze stile and out to a very busy rod on Lympne Hill.
Turn right, uphill, for 100 metres, looking for steps and a stile into a sharply rising field on your left. Cross to a junction of paths.
Bear left on the lower path along the bottom edge of the field with woods below (confusingly there are, currently, two waymarks for this one path). At a corner of fence and wood, keep straight on up the open field, bearing slightly left, to a stile in the top fence. Cross and continue up a long flight of steps through trees.
At the top turn left on a drive. Go through a parking area and on past accommodation buildings on your left and a bistro.
The drive now bears left. Here turn off right, up an asphalt track, by a long stone wall. At a house, this continues as an enclosed path. Eventually go through a gate and down steps to a road.
Turn left a short distance to ‘The County Member’ pub and the start of the section.
