Ham Bridge to Bullingstone and return
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 27th May 2018
8.1 miles of walking (3.8 hours) including 3.75 miles progress on the Wealdway
For more photos of this walk, click here.
We were in East Sussex for the bank holiday weekend, with the explicit aim of getting out for a walk each day as well as continuing to sort out Richard's parents' possessions from their house in Hartfield. We only had one car with us, and Richard had managed to find a couple of circuits involving the Wealdway and other paths, giving two walks that wouldn't require us to use the same path for outward and return journeys. To progress along the Wealdway in logical order, we'd actually have walked yesterday's walk today and today's walk yesterday, but we needed to be back at the house by 2pm today, so we reversed the two walks in order to do the shorter and nearer one today.
Ham Bridge is a bridge which takes the former railway line (now the Forest Way) over a stream, near the B2110 to the west of the village of Groombridge. There was originally a bridge over the road here too, but now the Forest Way descends to the road on both sides rather than crossing it (don't believe the OS map!) and there is a convenient lay-by at TQ514368. It's only a short distance from Hartfield, so we were parking at around 7.45am. Despite the early hour and the fact that there had been spectacular thunderstorms in the night (with more showers forecast), leaving a misty and humid morning, there were plenty of cyclists and dogwalkers about and several cars already in the lay-by.
We walked a short distance along the road towards Groombridge then turned left onto the Sussex Border Path, initially retracing our steps from 28th April. However, after about a quarter of a mile we turned right onto a route shared by the Sussex Border Path and the Wealdway which soon took a clear path across a planted field towards the railway and hill beyond. We passed under the railway, noticing a poignant memorial to a young man who was killed by a train nearby.
We soon reached the hill and started to climb, though the signposting was unclear and at one stage we found ourselves heading for Pond Wood rather than above it. Richard had downloaded the iPad version of the map and that soon put us right, and we climbed more steeply to the brow of the hill. It was glorious walking, with atmospheric views to misty woods in all directions. We continued ahead on a wide avenue of grass, with Burrs Wood to our right. This brought us to an enclosed track and so to the A264 at Stone Cross.
After walking along the road for a short distance we turned up past Stone Cross Farm and continued across farmland towards Fordcombe. We passed a man out walking a dog; the man seemed nervous about the dog's behaviour around other people (or perhaps he thought we had a dog), but all the dog did was bark, lots and loudly. We approached Fordcombe via the cricket pitch, realising that the route on the ground emerges right by the village hall/club house, conveniently right opposite the road we needed to take.
The road wasn't too busy, but after about a third of a mile we took a "long cut", resulting in a slightly longer walk but a little less road walking - we'd turned onto a footpath but this brought us to another road which we followed a short distance before emerging exactly where we would have come out on the original road! We continued past Silcocks Farm (a converted Oast House), then turned right just before Hickman's Farm. This took us across a delightful meadow to Avery's Wood.
Avery's Wood is a beautiful, magical place. We meandered our way up and down through the trees and across a stream, on a path that was sometimes rather muddy. This morning's mist had "burned off" as the temperature rose, but the high humidity in the wood led to occasional localised mist, which made the wood even more atmospheric.
We eventually reached the edge of Bullingstone where a passageway led to the point on the next leg that we'd passed and photographed yesterday. Today I photographed Richard standing at the end of the passageway, then we turned round, back into the wood, now on the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk which follows a route further to the east of that taken by the Wealdway. The wood was as attractive as previously, though slightly spoilt by several groups of teenage boys with large rucksacks with different coloured rain covers. Our guess is that they were Duke of Edinburgh Award candidates, possibly from one of the many independent schools in the area.
We left the wood behind us and stopped on a stone stile for me to change my socks - on this occasion I think my feet were wet as a result of the damp undergrowth rather than sweat - though I had to move mid sock-change, when a dog-walker with a dalmatian came past. We reached a road and turned right for a short distance then then took a path past Ashurst Place, just a short distance to the west of Langton Green, which in turn lies to the west of Tunbridge Wells.
We emerged onto the A264 and, somewhat to our surprise, noticed that the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk doesn't take the obvious path straight ahead, but instead follows the main road to another path around Crockers Hatch Corner. However the route was actually signposted across a very large verge, which was a mass of wild flowers including orchids. The path when we got to it was rather overgrown and nettly, and shortly afterwards we found ourselves battling through oilseed rape.
As we descended through Beech Wood we caught up with a group who were going VERY slowly, partly because they were not exactly dressed for walking, with one of the women walking in flip-flops. Are these the guests from the wedding we passed yesterday? We passed some of the group in the wood and the rest were waiting for their friends by the B2110, which we followed down to Groombridge, crossing back from Kent to East Sussex.
The Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk meanders through Groombridge but we walked straight through, on the road that leads to Hartfield (so we, in particular Richard, know it well). However, we went straight ahead on the road towards Crowborough to enable us to walk the last little section back to the car along the old railway line - the access to this was not quite as shown on the map (again), but once on the right path it gave a pleasant end to what had been a most enjoyable walk.
