Robust Rambles

Herne Bay to Hazelmere Robust Ramble

Section 8 (Return)

Hastingleigh to Stelling Minnis

Walk Details
Map Explorer 138 Dover, Folkestone & Hythe
Total Circular Distance 11 miles/6 hours
Start From the pond and seats in the centre if Hastingleigh. Limited on road parking. Pub open Wednesday to Sunday evenings.
Comment A mixed walk with a great variety of country paths and excellent views in very quiet country. Very hilly so expect steep climbs. Several stiles to negotiate.
Walk Instructions

From the pond in the village centre, return along the byway used on the outward route for ¼ mile. Ignore the first path off left and continue to the next feint path off left noted on the outward route.

Go up through vegetation to enter the field on your left. Goi straight across the field to woods at the far side and drop down to a road opposite a house.

Bear right a few paces then left through a metal kissing gate and downhill by a fence. Go down the side of a rough pasture and into a valley.

Continue on up the other side but bear slightly right across to a black metal kissing gate in the top fence leading into woods. Go up, very steeply.

At the top emerge through a wooden kissing gate into a field and bear diagonally right across it.

Exit through metal gates into a tree lined way past sheds on the left. At the end turn left down to metal gates onto a gravel drive.

Turn right on this, then through wooden gates and on downhill. At the bottom pass houses to reach a road and turn right into the centre of the village of Bodsham.

At a junction turn left just before the old pub and go down a narrow side road passing the pub on your right. Pass farm buildings on your left and soon meet a stile on the left by a rusty metal fieldgate.

Cross and go ahead, down the field into the valley ahead.

At the far side of the field, exit through a metal kissing gate by a metal fieldgate and go diagonally right up and across a sloping pasture.

At the top pass a metal fieldgate on your left and turn left, up by a fence, to a metal kissing gate into a field corner. Go forward up the edge under wires.

At the top emerge onto a road. (Ignore path opposite) Turn right on the road. IN 100metres ignore a bridlepath off left into a wood.

In another 100 metres, before a steep drop in the road, turn left on a bridlepath through a metal fieldgate.

Go all the way down the pasture, parallel with the hedge on your left, to a farm at the bottom.

Go through a metal fieldgate, then right down a grassy track, past a house, to a junction of tracks. Keep forward, downhill, on a rough byway.

Reach a road junction. Cross to the road opposite, signed to Stelling Minnis and continue for ½ mile climbing steeply uphill. A road feeds in on the right, continue forward.

Ignore a narrow road off left and 30 metres further on, opposite a farm entrance on your right, turn left through bushes to a stile into a field.

Turn right along the edge a short way then left across the field. Keep on the path as it skirts farm buildings and emerge over a tiny stile onto a road. Turn right along to a junction with a major road.

Cross with care to go straight into the field opposite. Turn left on a bridlepath along the edge towards a farmhouse.

On approaching the house follow the path around to the right and follow the field edge all the way along to a waymark. Here turn left out of the field through bushes onto a path enclosed between hedge and fence.

Join a drive and continue past houses to emerge at the Rose & Crown in Stelling Minnis and the start of the walk.