Section 16 (Out)
Frinsted to Hucking
Walk Details
| Map | Explorer 148 Maidstone & the Medway Towns |
|---|---|
| Total Circular Distance | 9 miles/6 hours |
| Start | Parking at the church and on-road |
| Comment | A varied walk in isolated countryside with woodland, grassy valleys, constant slopes and regular distant views. The Hook and Hatchet pub at Hucking is excellent. Open everyday with food. Also offering a camp site. There are no facilities at Frinsted. |
Walk Instructions
With Frinsted church behind, walk back to the T-junction. Here turn right on the road between houses. Soon reach a righthand bend. Leave the road through a metal kissing gate and go up a path between fences. Cross a stile and keep forward to the top of the path and a stile on your right into a pasture.
Cross and turn diagonally left across the field to the top left corner. Ignore a stile off right and find a stile by a metal fieldgate in the corner. Cross to a further stile by a metal fieldgate into a huge sloping pasture.
Go slightly diagonally left down the field to the fence at the bottom. Turn left along this fence passing an old chalkpit on your left. Continue to the very end of the field and cross a stile into trees beyond.
Soon emerge into a field and continue up the edge with a hedge on your left.
At the top, bear left around a huge tree. At the far side go through a white barrier onto a rough farm track. Follow this past old farm buildings. Just past the last house on your left, reach a metal kissing gate on the left. Here turn right by a pole and pass holly bushes to reach a stile.
Cross into the corner pf a vast sloping field. Bear diagonally left down into the valley, pass through a gap between two lines of trees, and continue up towards a hedge at the top and a wooden telegraph pole.
Emerge on to a road by he pole and turn right for 100 metres. Pass farm buildings on he right and look for a meeting of five gates on your left. Go through the narrow metal pedestrian gate.
The next half mile across a huge field is very difficult. Basically follow the direction of the fingerpost at the start. This goes diagonally right for ¼ mile across and then down to the far opposite corner of the field. Be careful not to drift left.
From the bottom corner (there is a waymark on a post here) go on across towards woods.
Reach a metal fieldgate with an unusual chain stile at the side. Go into the field ahead, with further woodland ahead. Bear diagonally right across to the far opposite righthand corner and drop down into a wide leafy track.
Reach and cross a stile by a metal fieldgate and cross into a grassy valley. Turn diagonally left, up towards power lines. Pass a chalkpit on the right and turn steeply right upto the very top corner and a metal kissing gate just under power lines.
Go through and upto a stile, although no step (there are handles to allow passage through the electric fence).
Once through go forward carefully, look for a stile on the left hidden behind nettles. There is a metal fieldgate nearby. The stile has no steps.
Enter a field and go diagonally right across to woods at the far side. Exit onto a dirt road and turn right. In 20 metres, around a righthand bend, look for a stile in the hedge on your left.
Cross into a meadow and go forward. Reach a stile in the far corner. Turn right on an enclosed bridleway, uphill by a fence on your left. This soon becomes a hard farm road. Follow this all the way up to a T-junction at the top.
Cross a road to a footpath into he woods opposite. Follow the narrow, overgrown path for some way. Eventually emerge into a field. Turn left along the edge.
Where the wood soon ends with an open field ahead, turn left down the edge to a house on the left. Here turn right on a path across the field under wires. At far side enter a wood and continue to a road. Turn right up to a junction. Turn left past a house on the left and immediately turn left again into a byway.
Follow this for ½ mile, muddy in places and used by motorbikes. Weave right and left to finally reach a sharp left bend. Here leave the byway and go forward to a wooden fieldgate.
Ignore a bridleway off right and go around the fieldgate to a wide grassy track (not a PROW but this is open. access land). Continue through woods for same way to reach a metal kissing gate in a wire fence at the far side
Do not go through, but turn left on a track along with the fence on your right for ¼ mile. Eventually reach a very large tree with a wooden kissing gate on the right. Go through into a large sloping pasture with information about wild boars ahead.
However do not go forward from the kissing gate but turn 45 degrees right and climb up the field to a wooden kissing gate by a wooden fieldgate at the top.
Go on up a grassy track. This soon weaves through woods before exiting onto a road. Go right a few paces then left, through a metal swing gate and on up a field edge.
Pass by a house on your left then on with a fence on the left to the top of the field. Go forward to drop down into the next field and go straight across to a wooden pole.
Cross the road to a wooden kissing gate and enter a large field. Look across left to see the roof and white top of the Hook & Hatchet pub in Hucking. Go across to it and the end of the section.
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