About a year ago I described a linear walk over the Downs from Ringmer across to Lewes which was published in the Argus on April 7, 2007, and is still available here.

This week, thanks to the opening up of a new permissive footpath route in the Ouse Valley under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, I am able to offer a low-level return route from Lewes to Ringmer, which manages to avoid all road walking once away from the town and includes about a mile beside the River Ouse with good views across the water to the isolated church at Hamsey.

Either walk can be sampled on its own, using the half-hourly bus service between Ringmer and Lewes to return to the start.

Alternatively the two walks can be linked to provide a nicely contrasted high and low level circuit, totalling ten miles in all with a refreshment stop in Lewes or Ringmer at about the halfway mark.

1. From the bus stop outside Waitrose and opposite Lewes Bus Station, turn left along Eastgate Street and, after a few yards, turn left again along the pedestrianised High Street, soon crossing the River Ouse.

A few yards after passing Woolworths on your right, turn left beneath an archway to follow a red-brick paved path as it passes to the right of the Harveys brewery compound, soon bearing left to join and follow the Ouse river bank upstream past the Tesco superstore.

2. On reaching a footbridge over the river, don’t cross it. Instead, turn right to follow a path away from the river. After passing beneath a bridge which once carried the Lewes-to-Uckfield railway, turn left to follow a path up to join a road (Malling Way) where you should turn right.

After about 200 yards, turn left along Church Lane. About 70 yards short of the junction with the A26, turn left along Barn Road and, after a few yards, right along Prince Charles Road which soon runs parallel to, but well segregated from, the A26.

A few yards short of the start of Queens Road on the left, turn right up steps to join the main road and left along the pavement.

3. When opposite the junction of the A26 and the B2192 at Earwig Corner, turn left to squeeze to the right of a locked gate where a notice and map indicate that you are at the start of a permissive route established under the Conservation Walk scheme.

Follow a wide, hedged path gently down into the Ouse Valley. Where the enclosed path ends at a gate, head out across a low-lying meadow, aiming for the square tower of Hamsey Church in view on a low mound ahead.

On the other side of this field, join the raised river bank of the River Ouse and turn right to follow it upstream.

4. Follo the river bank for about a mile with good views across the water to Hamsey Church. Just past a small weir, at a point where the canal joins the old river, turn right to walk squarely away from the Ouse with a fence and a low bank dropping away on your right.

The path feeds into a clear farm track. Just short of a group of barns, labelled as Chalkham Farm on the Explorer map, turn right still walking along a clear, unfenced track.

A few yards short of the buildings at Lower Stoneham Farm, turn left to follow the access drive from the farm out to the A26, where the permissive route ends.

5. Cross the main road and, ignoring the main drive to Upper Stoneham directly ahead, follow another drive, half left, signed to “farm and units”.

On reaching the middle of an open area used for parking cars and coaches, turn half-left to pass through a wide gap into a field at the left end of a row of planted trees.

Once out into the field, veer half-right on a faint cross-field path, aiming for the corner of a field boundary, protruding from the right. Join and follow the right field edge with a row of maturing young trees marking the hedgerow to your right.

In the field corner, follow the field edge round to your left and, after about 50 yards, go right through a wide gap and follow the direction of a finger post half-left across the middle of a field where there is a faint path through an autumn-sown arable crop.

6. In the field corner, go through a wide gap, left through a second gap and along a left field edge with a wood on your left. In the next field corner, go through a third gap and turn right along a right field edge.

About two-thirds along the field edge, where there is a finger post in the hedge on your right, fork half-left across the field where a path should be marked out across any growing crop.

Go through a swing gate, cross a drive to another gate and follow a path across a field, rather tiresomely and unnecessarily squeezed between fences.

Beyond a kissing gate, the path climbs gently along a right field edge, still confined between fence and hedge.

Keep to the right of the next field until you can go right through a gate into a detached segment of Ringmer churchyard. Walk round the left edge of this area out to a lane opposite the church.

Go ahead through the main churchyard, skirting to the right of the church. Leave the churchyard though a wicket gate in the far right corner which takes you out on to Ringmer village green.

For the bus back to Lewes turn right across the green to the B2192, cross the road at the pedestrian traffic lights and turn right along the opposite pavement for 100 yards or so to reach the bus stop.