Robust Rambles

Herne Bay to Hazelmere Robust Ramble

Section 7 (Out)

Kingston to Stelling Minnis

Walk Details
Map Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Total Circular Distance 10 miles/5 hours
Start From the Black Robin pub in Kingston, parking here if intending to be a customer. Not open Mondays.
Comment A mixed walk with a great variety of country paths and excellent downland views, with hills and hollows, woodland and fields. Most of the walk is on farm drives and tracks. There are short linking sections of road walking where care is needed as verges are sparse. The early section is on part of the Elham Valley Way. Some care needed to find paths in woodland. Some steep slopes. Tricky fieldedge paths into Stelling Minnis but the fully open Rose and Crown is a consolation. This is a long walk needing plenty of time.
Walk Instructions

With the Black Robin behind, turn right, past the car park entrance and on up Covet Lane (the main road swings off left).

Ignore the footpath almost immediately off left and keep up the lane for 200 metres. Go under an old railway bridge with stunning brickwork. Pass a pair of houses on the left and then a waterworks.

Now turn left up a tarmac drive signed to Hearts Delight. Keep up through the woods for some way. Ignore a cross path halfway and emerge at the top of the wood.

Stay on the track as it bears right between hedges, still slightly uphill.

Finally reach the entrance to Hearts Delight Farmhouse. Stay on the main track as it drops down to the right by an orchard.

At the next junction soon reached, bear left, uphill, towards a house.

When level with the house on your right, drop down left onto a concrete track going up the back of a barn.

Follow this until it bears sharply left. Here bear right onto a grassy way through trees.

Go through a metal kissing gate onto a narrower path going steeply up across a meadow to a wood at the top.

Through the trees, exit over a stile (broken) to a road junction. Go straight across and up Station Hill.

Where the road turns left. Turn right along Red Gate Shaw for ½ mile. Ignore all entrances to houses off left and keep on through woods.

At the far side go through an equestrian gate and on between fields towards distant woods. Ignore a path off left and continue to the top of the field.

At the top corner, continue forward, swinging slightly right, still towards the wood.

Reach an equestrian gate and pass through into the wood. Turn immediately right on a bridleway (ignore path opposite).

In 100 metres reach a Y-fork. Ignoring the clear straight path ahead, bear right on the bridleway into trees.

Follow the bridleway all the way up the wood to emerge onto a road.

Turn left on this narrow country road for 200 metres. Pass three forestry tracks going off left. This section of woods is quite open as there has been considerable felling.

Eventually the road reaches the top of a steep drop with with a 28% warning sign. Continue down the hill a short way then turn left on a footpath up through the trees.

Soon emerge at the top and bear right along the edge of the wood on your right. In 50 metres look for a footpath off right, at an angle, down into the wood.

Soon reach a Y-fork, keep left, initially below the edge of the wood, then bear right, to go steeply downhill to emerge at a road junction at the bottom.

Turn left a few paces, past the gated road to Bladbean, then in a few paces more, turn right on a bridleway steeply uphill, through a boundary fence. Climb through Covet Wood and finally exit onto a road opposite Kingswood Farmhouse. Turn left along the road to Clambercrown for ¼ mile.

At the junction, ignore a side road on the right ‘unsuitable for vehicles’. Then pass Clambercrown Cottage on your right and bear right along a side road towards Bossingham.

At a righthand bend, continue straight forward onto a bridleway for ½ mile. Follow the path easily, to finally descend to a road.

Either cross the road slightly left to a wooden swing gate in the hedge (likely to be overgrown) and enter a meadow, thn turn diagonally left across the centre to a metal fieldgate in the far opposite corner, or, turn left along the road a short way looking for double metal fieldgates on your right.

Turn in here and go straight up a wide bridleway towards woods. Continue steeply up in the woods. At the top of the rise meet a cross path.

Turn left for some way, between trees then through trees. Finally reach a metal fieldgate and stile at the far edge of the wood.

Cross the stile and turn immediately right, to go around the edge of the field with a fence on your right.

In the corner ahead, by a metal fieldgate cross a stile into an overgrown enclosed path. Follow it around to exit through a metal fieldgate by a farmyard. Cross over to a stile in the hedge ahead.

Turn diagonally left across a pasture to a stile at the far side.

Cross and turn left through a gap in the hedge in the corner, then immediately right up the side of a field with a hedge on your right.

Continue to the very top corner (currently over a fallen tree) to a metal swing gate. DO NOT GO THROUGH but turn sharply left back on yourself to go diagonally across the corner of the field to a projecting end of hedge.

On reaching the hedge end bear right along the field edge with the hedge and trees on your right.

Pass a stile off right and keep forward. Where the hedge ends, bear diagonally left down and across the open field roughly along a line of poles and wires.

At the bottom bear right again, along the field edge with trees on your right.

Cross a double stile in the hedge ahead and go straight across a narrow field to a stile at the far side. DO NOT CROSS but turn right, still in the field and go up the edge with the hedge on your left.

Reach a stile in the top corner by a swing gate. Cross the stile into an enclosed path to soon reach a paddock, and then to another stile onto a drive by a house.

Go straight up the drive for some way to reach a junction with a road. Stelling Minnis Common is ahead.

Turn left along the grass verge to a junction where a road goes off right. Cross and go right along this road to reach a corner with the Rose & Crown pub ahead. Walk past the pub entrance to soon reach the village shop and the end of the section.