Section 15
Doddington to Frinsted
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
Robust Ramble
Herne Bay to Hazlemere
Section 15 Out
Doddington to Frinsted
OS Map: Explorer 137 Ashford, Headcorn and Wye
Total Circular Distance: 7 miles/4 hours
Start: Parking at the Chequers Inn by arrangement or on road. The Inn is not open on a Monday. There is a small shop on the main road nearby.
Comment: A varied walk with arable fields and orchards. In several places it’s necessary to divert around the edges of orchards as paths are not evident through the trees. There are no facilities at Frinsted except a bench on the green by the church. The church porch was open with seats but not the church itself.
With the Chequers Inn behind, turn right up Chequers Hill. In 15 metres turn left off the road, up steps in the bank, to a metal kissing gate. Go forward up a grassy path.
Continue through a second metal kissing gate and on up an enclosed path to the top of the rise. Emerge onto an open field. Turn left, along by the hedge on your left.
At a corner go on through the hedge (ignoring metal kissing gate on your left) and keep along the edge of the next field with a fence on the left.
On reaching another metal kissing gate on your left, go through and turn immediately right to continue along with the hedge on your right.
At the far end go through a metal kissing gate by a metal fieldgate. In a few paces meet another metal fieldgate. Here turn right, up into a field corner.
This is a large open field (currently no path reinstatement). Look for a row of wooden telegraph poles on your right. Basically, head straight across the field to the third pole over on the far side (the actual path if marked may dogleg right and left to the same point).
Beyond the pole are two concrete posts. Go between them and follow the field edge and the line of poles for ½ mile.
Finally pass the house and garden of Great Higham, on your right. Keep along the boundary to the very end. Here bear right into an orchard.
Go 15 metres up the hedge on your left, then right, down the side of the orchard with (currently) soft fruit on your left.
At the hedge at the far end, turn left down by the hedge on your right. Reach metal barriers in the hedge and turn right out onto a road.
Turn left along the road. At a junction, ignore roads off left and right and go straight over and up Minching Wood Lane passing a house on the right.
In 200 metres pass a new cubist house on your right. Immediately turn left on a path through trees into an orchard.
Bear diagonally right down a grassy avenue, between trees. At the top exit onto a road.
Cross to a gap and continue along the edge of a further orchard. Ignore an old stile on the left and continue along by woods on the left.
Where these end, go forward, up the side of the orchard with a hedge on your right (this is not the PROW which is not cleared through the fruit trees).
At the hedge at the top, turn left along the top of the orchard to the corner ahead, by trees.
Here turn right, through a gap, and follow the edge of the orchard with a wood on your left.
Follow round to a T-junction with a bridleway. Turn right on this rough farm track.
Keep on past houses then a school, to a T-junction. Turn left for ½ mile.
Go gently up and down. Look for an overgrown footpath off right into trees.
At the bottom cross a stile into a pasture. Keep on in the same line, diagonally left (just left of house at the top) up to a stile onto a road. Turn left for 150 metres.
Pass two detached mock Tudor cottages. After the foot of a short hill, look for a metal kissing gate by metal fieldgates on the left. Enter a field and go diagonally right, across to the far right opposite corner.
Exit through a metal kissing gate. Go left to a road junction then right uphill.
At a road junction at the top, turn right. Shortly reach the church in Frinsted and the end of the section.
There are no facilities here except a bench on the green. The church porch with seats was open but not the actual church. There is parking here.
Robust Ramble
Herne Bay to Hazlemere
Section 15 Return
Frinsted to Doddington
OS Map: Explorer 137 Ashford, Headcorn and Wye
Total Circular Distance: 7 miles/4 hours
Start: Parking by the church or on road.
Comment: A relatively short walk back, mostly along field edges with linking sections of quiet country roads.
With the church behind, go back to the road junction and turn left, downhill, on the outward route.
At the junction at the bottom, bear left to a metal kissing gate on the right into the corner of a field.
Two paths go off here. Take the righthand one up the field edge. At the top end go through a metal kissing gate and continue along with a hedge on your left.
Continue straight on into the next field and keep along the edge.
At the far end approach a bulge of trees. There are two options. Just before the trees push into the field notice a footpath off left into the trees. Take this and walk straight down through the wood. Otherwise stay on the PROW and continue to follow the field edge around the trees to the end corner of the field at the far side.
Here go left into the wood (possibly boggy) and soon meet a path. Turn right on this path which soon reaches a road. Turn left for ½ mile.
At a junction, turn left for 150 metres (ignore gate in fence on right). Just before woods, turn right through a wicket gate, then diagonally right down a large pasture (keep well left of a cottage over the far side).
Eventually reach the far side of the field. Look for an ancient wooden swing gate and go through bushes to a wooden kissing gate onto a road. Turn left.
At a junction turn right on a footpath into trees. Soon emerge into a field. Take the path going diagonally right towards a mass of trees over on the far side.
On reaching the trees, turn left along the field edge for some way. Reach Little Higham Farm on your right.
Here turn right, off the field, and pass between buildings. Then swing round left across the farmyard, to a gap into the corner of a field.
Bear slightly left across the open field (currently no reinstatement). Reach a waymark post at the far side.
Turn left along the field edge a short distance to a lone tree on the right. At this point the path goes on straight across the open field ahead to a wooden pole in the far hedge.
Find a sturdy but overgrown stile and go over to a metal kissing gate into the top of a pasture. Cross diagonally left to a further metal kissing gate.
Go through a wood following the path that drops downhill. Go through a metal kissing gate into a large pasture and bear diagonally left down to the far opposite corner (a huge metal double fieldgate is currently in the way. It is not locked but very difficult to open and may need to be climbed).
In the corner go through a metal kissing gate out to a road junction. Turn left on the main road back into Doddington passing a playing field, garage and butcher’s shop to return to the Chequers Inn and start of the section.
