Section 9
Headcorn to Frittenden
Walk Details
Walk Instructions
Robust Ramble – Kent Triangle - Faversham – Wadhurst – New Romney – Faversham
Section 9 Out
Headcorn to Frittenden
OS Map: Explorer 137 Ashford
Total Circular Distance: 9 miles (5 hours)
Start: The White Horse, Headcorn; on-street parking opposite possible.
Comment: A walk with intensive agriculture and horses. The second half is particularly demanding to follow so allow plenty of time. From Little Brookwood Farm there are constant obstacles in the way of path furniture or paths that are hard to find. There are stiles.
From the White Horse, turn right, away from the traffic lights, and walk into the village. At the first bend, turn right into a footpath called Church Walk, down the side of the church.
At the bottom, swing left around the church to the porch and main entrance. Here turn right to a cast iron swing gate. Go through and straight on, past Book House. Follow a cobbled path for some way.
Cross the railway with great care (fast running lines) and then the river. Ignore a path off left and continue to a stile at the end of the path.
Enter a field and turn left to a gap into the next field. Bear left to walk along the hedge on your left. At the far corner, exit onto a road. Cross and continue with a hedge on your right.
At the bottom of a slope, bear left to cross a concrete bridge, and continue down the side of woods. Wind down to the bottom corner. Cross a new stile and a drive, then on, past Brook Wood Farm. Enter a grassy way leading to a footbridge, then stile into a vast field. Turn right along the field edge with fence and hedge on your right.
At bottom corner, leave the bluebell woods on your right, and exit through a gap and over a footbridge into a further vast field.
Bear slightly right across the open field, to a cottage roof in the opposite corner. On arrival, it’s Little Brook Wood, cross a stile onto a drive and turn right upto a road.
Turn left on the road for 20 metres then left across a footbridge and through a metal swing gate into a horse pasture. A difficult section now begins.
Go diagonally left up the pasture to gates in the top left corner. Exit through a metal fieldgate and go forward to a farm road. Turn right on the roadway and go up and through a farm (all horses, dogs and old land rovers).
At the far side go through a metal fieldgate into a pasture and at the corner ahead negotiate pole barriers out onto a track. Turn right upto a junction with a farm junk yard on the right.
Here turn left on a wide track between hedges. Where the horse paddocks either side finish, and the track bears sharp left, turn right into a field. Go up the side with a hedge on your right, then along the top hedge looking for a stile.
Cross into adjoining field (you need to get through this hedge any way you can; do not go along to the far corner as the OS map seems to indicate). Go to a footbridge and metal swing gate which can be seen in the top left corner.
Through these, turn immediately left over another footbridge and through a gate into a field. Turn sharp right along the field edge down to the bottom corner, then left along the bottom edge to a metal fieldgate in the corner ahead. Go through and turn right, through a second gate, to a road.
Keep forward on the road a few paces, then turn right on a path going up the gravel drive to Haffenden Farmhouse. Pass through a wooden fieldgate into a pasture, and at the far side, leave through a metal fieldgate.
In the next field, bear diagonally left to the far opposite corner. Cross a metal swing gate and footbridge and continue along the field edge with a hedge on your left. Soon reach a stile on your left. Cross and go up the edge of a pasture with a hedge on your left, to a stile in the corner ahead.
Cross and go diagonally right over to the far opposite corner (ignore the waymark). In the corner cross a stile in the hedge into a sloping field. Turn diagonally left upto a stile in the top opposite corner by a metal fieldgate and pond.
Cross the next field in the same diagonal direction passing a massive pond. Cross a stile into a bushy area (ignore path off left) and go straight ahead to a metal kissing gate.
Pass a pond to another metal kissing gate, then soon a third. Continue by the hedge on the left to a fourth leading out to a road by an old chapel.
Turn right down the road for 150 metres to the village centre and the Bell & Jorrocks pub with the village shop in the stables behind. This is the end of the section.
Robust Ramble – Kent Triangle - Faversham – Wadhurst – New Romney – Faversham
Section 9 Return
Frittenden to Headcorn
OS Map: Explorer 137 Ashford
Total Circular Distance: 9 miles (6 hours)
Start: The Bell& Jorrocks, Frittenden
Comment: A walk with some attractive old farmhouses and quiet countryside. Sadly many of the fields are huge and obviously amalgamations of a smaller patchwork. There are many oasthouses but the variety of hop gardens and orchards has gone. Horse paddocks mean extra stiles, gates and fences. There are many old stiles often in disrepair. Pedestrian gates are legion, but KCC has done its best to mark and conserve the public rights of way. The section around Bletchenden is not very welcoming to walkers.
From the Bell & Jorrocks, turn left back up the road used on the outward route. At the top of the hill, by the old chapel, turn left on the footpath, then back through four metal kissing gates to reach a stile at the top of the hill.
Do not cross but turn right along with the hedge and fence on your left. Keep going for some way along the top of several fields.
At the end, by a pond, go through a metal kissing gate into a sloping pasture (a seat on your left). Turn diagonally down and across the field to a metal kissing gate by a metal fieldgate in the bottom opposite corner.
Go through and out to a road. Cross to a path going over a footbridge and stile. Bear diagonally left across the centre of the field up to a stile in the top left corner. Cross into a pasture.
Go forward as before, down and across this huge field to a metal swing gate and footbridge in the bottom hedge. DO NOT CROSS, but turn sharp left, across the corner of the field, to a stile. Over this keep diagonally left across the field, aiming just right of a telegraph pole. Reach a stile and cross into the corner of the field ahead.
Again, cross diagonally towards the far opposite corner. Just right of the corner is a metal fieldgate. Go through this and over to a second one.
Go through and down, past old sheds, to a metal fieldgate on your left, by old Nissan huts. Go through the gate and bear right, around with the hedge, to an old metal fieldgate onto a road.
Continue straight up the road. Where it ends, go on up, over a stile and through trees (enjoying wonderful old house on right) to a rusty gate into a huge pasture.
Keep straight ahead across the field. In the far hedge reach and traverse a stile and footbridge into a thicket. Wind left to a footbridge and metal swing gate, into a pasture.
Bear right, across the corner, a short distance, to another swing gate. Through this turn left on a grassy bridlepath.
After some way, exit onto a broad, rough vehicle track, keeping on in the same direction (passing striking Vine Farm). Eventually emerge onto a road. Turn right.
In ten metres reach a stile by a metal fieldgate, on your left. Cross into a field and bear diagonally left across to a swing gate and footbridge hidden in the hedge at the far side, just by a circle of trees on your left.
Cross into a field and go up the edge with a hedge on your right. Cross a stile into a thicket, and wind around to a stile and footbridge. Over this turn sharp left.
At a corner ahead, climb onto an embankment and turn right along it towards houses (there seems to be some dissention about the route here but there is quite clearly a stile at the end).
Drop down off the embankment to a stile and cross onto a private road. Turn left along to a meeting of five tracks. Bear left to a footpath enclosed between fences just behind the sign to Oak Tree Barn.
Follow a clear path as it winds through woods and over footbridges (ignore a path off left). At the end of the wood, climb a stile into a field and go straight ahead along the edge.
Halfway along, the hedge kinks right. Here there is a footbridge. Turn right, over this, into a huge field. Bear slightly left across the field. There is a treeline along the other side. Aim two-thirds along (ie. not too near the top end), looking carefully for a stile in the treeline (there is a distinctive square oast behind it).
Cross into a small pasture. Bear right, diagonally across the centre, to the far opposite corner and a small wooden swing gate hidden there. Pass through to an enclosed path. This is horse paddock territory.
Soon reach a further small gate. Through this turn left to diagonally cross a paddock with a variety of jumps. Pass a circular sand school on your left (currently disused), and reach a white swing gate and footbridge in the hedge behind.
This emerges on a cross track. Go over to the metal swing gate opposite. Bear diagonally right across a large paddock. Pass a pond in the middle. Exit through a wide gap in the far right corner.
Keep forward, along the edge of a final paddock, with a wire fence on your right. Reach and cross a broken stile in the far corner onto a cobbled, enclosed footpath. Turn right.
This is the path used on the outward route. Keep straight along this attractive path, over river and railway, back to the entrance porch of the parish church in Headcorn.
For a change, turn right, up to the main road in the village. Turn left on the road and wind around sharp bends to return to the traffic lights and the White Horse at the beginning of the section.
(Headcorn also has the George & Dragon pub and a variety of shops and cafes)
