Tidebrook circular

By Ben Perkins

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This walk from Tidebrook, near Mayfield, passes through one of the most beautiful areas of the High Weald.

It traverses a charming smallscale landscape of fields and patches of woodland draped across a series of ridges and intervening valleys and is well served by a generous network of public paths, many of them along ancient highways between high banks.

It is a fairly hilly walk so allow plenty of time to complete this short but exceptional five-mile circuit. Most of the paths are clearly signed, fairly well used and therefore reasonably obvious underfoot. Be prepared for some mud in one or two places.

1.From the Tidebrook telephone box, start the walk southwards along the road in the Mayfield direction. After about 300 yards, soon after passing the entrance to Stream House on your left, go left over a stile and right behind the roadside hedge.

Shortly, go over a stile beside a gate and immediately turn left beside a left-hand fence. Where this fence turns away to the left, go ahead to a stile and pass through a strip of woodland to a second stile.

Follow the direction of an arrow on this stile across a field to find another stile and footbridge. Maintain direction uphill across the field beyond to join and follow the right field edge.

Go through a gateway a few yards to the left of the top field corner and continue, still walking parallel to the right field edge. Go through a gap next to a large oak tree and carry on beside a high right-hand hedge. Pass through a gate in the field corner, cross the next field and go through a second gate, a few yards to the right of the twin converted oast at Cinderhill Farm. Walk ahead along the gravel drive from this property.

2.At a T-junction with a tarmac drive, turn left. Where the main drive bends left go ahead, passing to the right of Cinderhill Cottage to a gate and then on along a grassy track between low banks.

Where the path begins to open out, turn sharply right over two stiles and drop steadily downhill along the right edge of a large sloping field. Go through a gateway in the bottom field corner and maintain direction across the next field to a gate at the far end from which a track laid with concrete sleepers continues.

3.On reaching the first of the buildings at Sharnden Old Manor Farm, go directly ahead to enter a narrow path which starts to the right of a gate, passes to the left of several derelict farm buildings and continues between high overgrown hedges, muddy underfoot in places.

At the bottom of the hill, bear right over a substantial bridle bridge. From here you can follow a well-surfaced and generally dry path and subsequently a gravel drive for more than half a mile out to a road.

4.Don't join the road. Instead, just short of the junction of drive and road, turn right along a track signed as a footpath to Coggins Mill. Go over a stile beside a gate, set back from the road and follow a left field edge, contouring along a hill side.

Go over a stile beside a gateway in the field corner and ahead along a left-field edge. Cross another stile and, ignoring a stiled path to the left, go ahead, still beside a left field edge. After 80 yards go left over a stile and drop downhill along a right field edge. In the field corner go right over a stile, forward for 30 yards, then left over a second stile. Head out across a field, diverging slightly from the left field edge.

Descend rather precarious wooden ladder steps to a wicket gate, cross a sleeper causeway and follow a clear path through grass and scrub and out via an access drive to join a lane at Coggins Mill. The Rose and Crown pub is now about half-amile away along the lane to the left, returning the same way, but to complete the walk turn right.

5.After 60 yards, turn left along a drive signed as a footpath to Little Trodgers Lane. At the end of the drive, go ahead along a woodland path. Cross a stream and after a few yards, at a waypost indicating a crossing path, turn right, dropping down to cross a concrete footbridge.

Over the bridge, bear right across a collapsed stile and climb along a left field edge. Go through a gap and ahead across two large fields then along the right edge of a third with a wood on your right.

After about 200 yards, a waypost directs you into the wood where a path winds down into a hollow way. Turn right within the hollow and shortly cross a new footbridge. Now, where you have a choice of signed paths, bear left through the wood to a stile and over a second new bridge.

Climb along a right field edge. In the field corner, cross a minor unbridged stream in a wooded dip, climb to go through a swing gate and head out across mown park land climbing to join a road over a stile in the top left cornerof this area.

6.Cross the road and follow the drive to Harewood Lodge opposite which soon narrows to a path.

Shortly, fork right downhill to cross a stile beside a gate and follow a path between wooded banks. This leads out after half a mile, through the gardens and then immediately to the right of Tidebrook House to join a road. Turn left back to the start.