Hartfield to Ham Bridge and back on the Forest Way

When Richard moved to Hartfield with his family in 1964, the village had a railway station on a line between East Grinstead and Groombridge (and beyond) and he remembers catching the train to East Grinstead. However, along came Mr Beeching (who, ironically, lived in Forest Row, between Hartfield and East Grinstead on the same line) and within a few years the line was closed. Thankfully, this story has a silver lining in that the old railway line is now the Forest Way, a "linear country park" much used by cyclists and walkers. It was one of four named paths that we walked on today, on a figure of eight walk which took us from Hartfield towards the county border with Kent, close to the town of Groombridge.

We had always hoped to get out for a walk this afternoon, after another morning of clearing out the loft of the house. We’d arrived in Hartfield around 10am and made good progress, so we stopped for lunch soon after midday, hoping to go for a walk afterwards. Richard checked his email as we were eating and found a message from the estate agent to say that they were, after all, expecting a house viewing this afternoon, starting at something between 3.45pm and 4.45pm. This provided us with an incentive to be out of the house, though somewhat later in the day than ideal, and clearing up ready for visitors delayed us a little.

We headed back to the High Weald Landscape Trail to the south east of Hartfield by the same route that we’d followed last time we were here, past Forstal Farm and skirting around Old Buckhurst. It was perhaps slightly less damp underfoot than it was last time we were here, though not so much that you’d worry about! It wasn’t overly warm, but lovely weather about a week ago had advanced the visible signs of spring quite noticeably; the trees were a delightful fresh shade of green and there were bluebells in the woods.

Past Old Buckhurst, we crossed the field to the road, as last time, but today we turned left at the road. The spire of Hartfield Church was initially visible above the trees, but we quickly descended towards Withyham with its attractive Church uphill to the right of the path (and with attractive views from the churchyard).

Because we knew that we didn’t want to return to Richard’s parents’ house until after 5pm, we had plenty of time to spare, so we decided to look inside Withyham Church. It’s a very interesting place. There are the usual stained glass windows and also copies of paintings illustrating the passion of Christ by the 14th Century Italian artist Niccolo di Pietro Gerini. The originals were given to the church by Edward John Ottley, but when their value was realised during restoration they were first loaned to Leeds Castle for safekeeping then sold, with the proceeds from the sale invested to fund maintenance of the Church. However the most famous, and bizarre, treasure in the Church is the Sackville Family Chapel, in particular the monument to Thomas Sackville, who died aged 13 in 1675. It consists of a life-sized sculpture of Thomas resting on a tomb and his grieving parents kneeling on either side.

Leaving Withyham Church we descended to and crossed the B2110 (the road from Hartfield to Groombridge) then crossed a floodplain to the old railway line, now the Forest Way. I’d been anxious that this section would be very wet under foot, but it was absolutely fine, which was reassuring. The Forest Way was quite busy, but we crossed straight over it and continued close to the River Medway. There were occasional muddy patches in this stretch, but most of the walking was fine and there was nothing that was seriously problematic.

We had good views to fields of oilseed rape and to the oast houses at Summerford Farm, which I remembered from walking this way many years ago with Richard’s Dad and one of the family dogs. We emerged onto a tarmacked track which took us right past the farm and to a road. The path continued on the other side of the road, still on a flood plain, now with a bank of bluebells to our left and the River Medway meandering along to our right. Hale Court Farm, also with an oast house, appeared to our left and we were walking towards higher ground, with a still-functioning railway line on an embankment. Crossing the railway line and climbing onto the higher ground is an adventure for another day. For now we took a path diagonally across a field, crossed the River Medway again and parted company with the Wealdway, which took a left hand turn.

We’d joined the Sussex Border Path (though we hadn’t quite reached the border) and we followed this back to the B2110. We turned right for a short distance to a lay-by (which we hope to use for the next leg of the walk) and the Forest Way. We headed back towards Hartfield.

I’m not sure what to write about walking on an old railway line. It was fast walking and not too muddy, but neither was it terribly exciting. I wouldn’t really have wanted to walk further along the Forest Way in one leg than the 2.5 miles to Hartfield. However, there were good views to Hale Court Farm, Summerford Farm and eventually to Hartfield Church. It was also delightfully green and, especially at the end where we joined the Forest Way, there were fewer people on the path than we had seen previously.

The Forest Way took us past the old Withyham Station and at the former Hartfield Station (which now houses a playgroup) we left the old railway and walked into the village. It was too soon to return to the house, so we went for a cup of tea at Pooh Corner. Given that Winnie the Pooh was not a tourist attraction when Richard moved too Hartfield with his parents (though they knew the books and spotted the similarity of Ashdown Forest to the locations in the books before finding out that A.A. Milne lived closeby) and the place which is now Pooh Corner was a shoe repair shop, this felt like something that we needed to do before losing the family link with the village – mind you, this doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon as we don’t have a viable offer on the house and the people who viewed it this afternoon are certainly not interested. Whatever, Pooh Corner served us a very nice cup of tea and slice of flapjack!

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