Section 19
Hawkhurst to Bodiam
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
Robust Ramble – Kent Triangle - Faversham – Wadhurst – New Romney – Faversham
Section 19 Out
Hawkhurst to Bodiam
OS Map: Explorer 136 Royal Tunbridge Wells
Total Circular Distance: 11 miles/7 hours
Start: The Royal Oak Hotel in central Hawkhurst
Comment: This is an interesting walk of some variety, often in quiet, isolated countryside. There is some road walking, the longest stretch has a pavement. The last section into Bodiam is beset with ruinous stiles which require care and dexterity.
With the Royal Oak Hotel on your right, walk away from the traffic lights, along the A268, towards Sandhurst. Pass shops on your left, then a petrol station and a side road off left, then on, past Tescos and a school entrance and a car park, finally past Birchfield Grove on the edge of the village.
At the brow of the hill, carefully cross the road to a footpath down the drive of Pear Tree House.
Keep on down the gravel drive into a leafy sunken track and continue downhill.
The path opens out to follow a hedge on your right, down into a valley.
At the bottom of the dip, stay on the main path, forward, to a hefty footbridge, then on, upwards.
Stray on the main track, uphill, towards houses. Emerge onto a main road. Turn right, a short distance, downhill, then left in to Talbot Road.
Initially downhill, soon continue uphill. In 150 metres, by a white boarded terrace on your right, turn left, up an asphalt path to emerge onto the grass of The Moor.
Go straight across towards the distant church. In the top corner cross to the Eight Bells pub and turn right upto the church.
Turn left along past a pond on your left, to reach a junction with a main road.
Turn right along the main road for ½ mile; there is a pavement all the way.
Pass Lillesden Park. As the road drops and bears gently left, cross a stile on the right by a metal fieldgate, just before a cemetery.
Go down the edge of the field to a stile at the bottom. Cross and continue to a second stile and footbridge. Cross and go steeply uphill to exit onto a road by a green metal fieldgate.
Turn left on the road for 150 metres. Just before a T-junction with a main road, turn right by a metal fieldgate, onto an unmarked drive to Great Wigsell.
The drive ends at a meeting of field corners. Ignore a path off right. Instead go straight up a leafy enclosed path.
Halfway up, the path is blocked by a fallen tree. It is possible to get into the field on your left and walk up past the blockage to regain the path.
Then the leafy path is easy to follow up and then down between banks for ½ mile.
Emerge by a barn with lake beyond at Great Wigsell. Go straight down a grassy way to a wooden fieldgate. Go through and on, between hedges.
In front if a splendid stone manor house, reach a gravel drive. Turn right on this and follow it along and around, past outbuildings, to a T-junction. Turn right to a pedestrian gate by a wooden fieldgate.
Go through to a Y-fork. Turn left on a farm track uphill, between a hedge on the left and a line of tall trees on the right.
Keep up the track for nearly a mile. Eventually pass through farm buildings to a road. Turn left on the road with care; there are no walkable verges but the road is quite wide.
At a crossroads go straight across and on for 200 metres. Turn left at Spring Farm, up a wide rough drive.
In 20 metres turn right over a rough stile (basically a bit of fence) in the hedge. Go through a small plantation to a wooden swing gate into a paddock.
Cross to a lone tree at the far side. Here cross a terrible stile, both broken and topped with barbed wire, into a large sloping pasture. Go straight downhill to the left end of a wood at the bottom of the field.
Find another broken stile. Cross and continue along the edge of the wood, then on down the field edge with a hedge on your right.
At the bottom corner turn right through a metal fieldgate, then immediately left down the field edge with a hedge on your left.
In the bottom corner, cross another broken stile, and bear right down the fence and hedge on your right (ignore a gateway and metal fieldgate).
Near the bottom, just before a wooden pole, turn right over another broken stile in the hedge into a pasture. Go down, slightly left, to a squeeze stile and footbridge in the bottom hedge, then steeply uphill in the field beyond.
Cross a stile at the top into a hop garden. Go straight across looking for a metal fieldgate in the hedge at the far side.
Go through and down towards a barn. Pass the barns and go forward to a metal swing gate by a pond.
Go through and down the field edge with a hedge on your left. Ignore a cross path and continue to a metal fieldgate in the bottom corner.
Go through to a steeply sloping field. Bear slightly right up to a stile between the second and third houses from the left.
Pass between houses to a road end. Go straight over to a bank up into a wood. Bear right down into a dip then up to a road opposite a play area.
Go over to a patch of grass and cross diagonally left to the top corner by a seat and bus stop. Turn right down the main road.
Pass a school and reach a road junction. Cross to a pavement and turn left. The pavement soon becomes a raised path high above the road. Stay on this for some way downhill, to emerge at The Castle pub in Bodiam and the end of the section.
Robust Ramble – Kent Triangle - Faversham – Wadhurst – New Romney – Faversham
Section 19 Return
Bodiam to Hawkhurst
OS Map: Explorer 136 Royal Tunbridge Wells
Total Circular Distance: 11 miles/6 hours
Start: The Castle pub in Bodiam
Comment: Tricky at both ends, initially finding the way out of the grounds of Bodiam Castle, then getting back in to Hawkhurst. Otherwise, apart from occasional stiles, mostly farm tracks.
With The Castle pub behind, cross the road and start into the car park entrance. Immediately bear left, by a wooden fieldgate, onto an asphalt footpath.
Keep forward, through a metal swing gate into the castle grounds and go up the path. Where this swings right towards the castle, go straight ahead, up a grassy bank, to the left of the castle.
Keep up, past the lake, to the café at the top. Turn right past the café, across to the far top corner of the site. Find a stile hidden behind a tree. Cross and join an enclosed path going uphill.
At the top, pass oasts on your left. Cross a drive and bear slightly left, down grass, to a stile into a paddock. Go steeply down and then left along the bottom edge of the field to a further squeeze stile.
Stay along the bottom edge to a second squeeze stile. Enter a large field and go diagonally left across the centre and quite steeply down.
Exit onto a road. Turn right a few paces, then left, up a drive to Bramble Cottage. At a sharp right bend, stay on the drive (ignore a path off left).
Keep on for some way, sometimes between hop gardens.
Pass between former farm buildings where the drive ends. Keep on up through a metal kissing gate, and on up a clear track (ignore a path off left). Keep forward between hedges.
Cross a stile into trees, then over a footbridge and on up.
At the top of a long rise, reach a junction. Turn left along past stables at Northlands.
Immediately past the stables, turn right on a grassy path downhill.
At the bottom of the slope, bear right, down the field edge. Keep on downhill.
Cross a footbridge and go forward through scrub. Bear left up a field edge with a hedge on your right. Conghurst Farm is up on the hill.
At a corner turn left, up towards the farm – good views here. Pass straight through extensive farm buildings. Finally emerge onto a road at a horseshoe bend. Turn left along the road for a short distance with care.
At a sharp left bend, just before Coach Hill Cottages, turn right, off the road. Go through a metal gate by a metal fieldgate and walk downhill on a grassy track. It becomes a sunken path down to the very bottom.
Cross a substantial bridge and continue uphill on an enclosed path between bushes.
Keep straight on up for some way by a field edge. Halfway up there is a strange section. The path becomes very wet, boggy and overgrown. There is an obvious diversion up into the field on your right.
Go up the field edge for 20 metres then back left, onto the original path, although it is now a wide tractor track, uphill.
Pass oasts and join a gravel drive up to a road. Turn left along this pleasant country road for ½ mile.
Eventually meet a main road. Turn right along this to soon reach the grassy expanse of The Moor. Carefully cross the road and head across the grass just left of the redbrick old school building.
Go down an asphalt path at the side by a white house. At the bottom reach a road. Cross diagonally right, to an old metal kissing gate and join an enclosed path downhill.
Eventually start climbing, always straight up between hedges (ignore a rusty swing gate off left halfway up).
At a clear junction, turn sharp right over a long footbridge. Keep on up the field edge. At the top enter a wood and keep across on the main path, passing a pond on your right.
Drop down to a field edge. Turn left, up and around the top edge and eventually out, past an old Methodist chapel to a main road.
Cross and turn left steeply uphill to reach the crossroads in the centre of Hawkhurst. The Royal Oak Hotel is on the right and the start of the section.
