Partridge Green to Copsale

by Ben Perkins

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The signed path from Partridge Green is the gateway to this gentle circular walk, which can be varied in length to suit the time you wish to spend on it

This is a circular walk of ten miles between Partridge Green and Copsale but if you feel it is too long, it can easily be shortened to nine miles or to seven or even five – details in the essentials column below.

I describe the whole ten miles because I did it all in less than four-and-a-half hours of gentle walking. More than four miles is on the Downs Link path, the former Shoreham-to-Christ's Hospital railway line and that is very easy walking indeed.

1. Start from Partridge Green and from The Partridge Inn walk right on the B2135. After a few steps, cross the road into a signposted lane which very quickly leads to the Downs Link path.

Do not turn into it but continue ahead and, when the track ends, go right and left into farmland and continue along the hedgerow. Pass a farm on the left and follow the signs, which are easy to see, through fields and along hedgerows to the bank of the young River Adur.

2. Turn right at a bridge and walk upriver with the river on the left. It is a pleasant, peaceful mile with the handful of buildings denoting West Grinstead ahead and to the left. Leave the riverbank as it bends left and walk half-right across the field to a metal gate.

Go through it and straight on along a concrete road. When the road bends left, go straight on through another metal gate into a field where there is a signpost 50 yards ahead. At the signpost, turn right into the churchyard of St George's Church, which has been there for almost 900 years.

There is a pleasant seat from which to contemplate the fine Horsham tile roof and the wooden porch, which has weathered a few centuries. Inside the church, the names of local farms are written on the backs of the pews where the employees of those farms used to sit in days gone by.

Leave the side of the church with the porch on the left and walk through the churchyard – it is signposted. At the end, just before open farmland, there is an unusual headstone on the left marking the grave of Douglas Arnold, a Second World War fighter pilot. It has the silhouette of an approaching Spitfire on the stone and John Magee's nowfamous poem: "Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth..."

Mr Arnold survived to live to 72. Magee, also a Spitfire pilot, wrote his poem at 19 – but did not live to see 20.

3. Leave the churchyard, turn right and follow the hedgerow (on the right) round the field edge to the B2135. Cross it to take a path in the field opposite but take great care – there are close bends to right and left, so cross as quickly and directly as possible.

Walk straight ahead in the field, up to the crest and down the other side to a signpost indicating the path between two ponds. Cross the next field in the same direction, crossing as you go the narrow private drive through West Grinstead Park.

Go into a lane and, as the sound of traffic on the busy A24 can be heard, turn right (there is a signpost) and, for the next half mile, walk through the Sussex Stud where there are fine houses and buildings and everything is in apple-pie order.

4. Leave these grounds, cross the A272 at an automatic gate and go through a similar gate on the other side of the road. Follow a farm track and, shortly after it bends left, look out for a signpost to the right. Go that way, walk diagonally left through a small field, then right along the edge of a pond and into a field with farm buildings on the left.

After only a few yards, look out for a path on the left between two of the buildings. It leads into a farmyard where you go left then right and walk into a field where there is a signpost with three arms. Take the path diagonally across the field, half-right, go over a stile into the next field and cross it in the same direction to a signpost into the trees.

Walk through a straggle of trees, over a couple of stiles and a plank bridge and then, in farmland beyond, keep the hedgerow on the left with power lines and pylons ahead. Soon after crossing under the power lines, look out for a signpost pointing right, and go that way, slightly downhill on a sunken track.

5. Follow it down through some scrubby land to the Downs Link path. If you feel like lunch at The Bridge at Copsale, as I did, turn left and walk a little over half a mile on the old railway line to that welcoming hostelry. Afterwards return to the Downs Link and a little more than four miles away is Partridge Green.

It is a good walk – and fast, if you like that sort of thing. There is plenty to see – attractive farms and buildings across the fields, the impressive buildings of the Crawley and Horsham Hunt kennels on the left and the platforms and sidings of the former West Grinstead railway station.

There is also a fine, nostalgic view of the Downs, with the land around Amberley Mount away on the far right, Chanctonbury Ring in the middle and Truleigh Hill with its masts on the left. There is just a glimpse of Devil's Dyke on the far left.

6. I never walk this way without visiting Hilaire Belloc's grave at West Grinstead Roman Catholic Church and, if you want to join in this little expedition, take a signposted path on the right, about 250 yards before the path goes over the top of the B2135. This path also leads to the B2135 and, there, turn right. This road has become very busy in recent years, so take care.

The grave is just inside the churchyard, at the corner of the church nearest the road. For me, Belloc is the patron saint of all of us who walk about Sussex and love it. He walked its length and breadth and wrote wonderful words about it, particularly in his book The Four Men, which describes a walk through Sussex from Robertsbridge to the Hampshire border.

His grave is not impressive and says nothing at all about his literary standing, only that he was a good Catholic. I feel something better should be done, somewhere.

Go carefully back along the road to the footpath, rejoin the Downs Link and walk on to Partridge Green.