Romany Ridge

By Eddie Start

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This walk in the Low Weald starts and finishes across two parts of Chailey Common, Romany Ridge Common and Pound Common, segments of an extensive 450-acre patchwork of heathland, designated and managed as a local nature reserve. The area is crossed by a complicated network of paths so a compass could prove useful to help you single out the described route at the beginning and end of the walk.

The rest of the circuit is more straightforward, mostly signed and showing signs of regular use as it follows a generally level route across hay fields and rough pastures and through small areas of woodland.

1.Start the walk along a path from the back left corner of the car park next to a notice board. After a few yards, go ahead across the Common, passing immediately to the right of another notice and map, then heading generally north west.

Immediately after crossing a sleeper bridge, keep right, almost straight on, and where the path divides again, fork right, soon merging with a wider track which heads north. After about 100 yards turn left along a tarmac drive heading westwards to leave the Common area.

2.Just short of a white gateway, side-step to the left over a stile and resume your previous direction to follow a right field edge round two sides of this field.

About half way along the second side, go right through a gate and immediately left along the left edge of two fields, with a hedge and then a wood on your left.

In the second field corner go through a gate and turn right along a fenced track. Just short of the farm buildings at Wivelsden Farm, turn left along the farm access drive.

After another 150 yards, just before the drive bends right, go ahead through a gate, along a right field edge to a second gate and on along a drive for a few yards to join a road. Turn right beside this busy road where there is a usable grass verge for most of the way.

3.After a little over a quarter of a mile, just past the entrance to a house called April Cottage on the left, turn left along a grassy path, signed as a bridleway, which squeezes to the left of a bungalow and heads southwards within a wooded strip.

After about 200 yards turn left along a signed crossing path to a stile and on beside a left-hand fence. After a little over 100 yards, bear half right between widely spaced electric fences to reach a stile.

Go ahead along a left field edge for a few yards before veering slightly right up a gentle slope.

Skirt to the right of a building complex and grounds to reach another stile, then bear half-right down across two paddocks with a stile between them.

Skirt to the right of a smallholding, go over a stile and cross a field, aiming for the far left corner. Follow a short chalk track across a culverted stream and veer left, keeping to the left of the next field, ignoring the first path into the wood on your left.

4.In the next field corner, bear left along a signed path which crosses a nicely designed footbridge erected by local volunteers.

Cross a stile, go through a gap in a thick hedge and straight ahead across a field to find the next stile. Maintain direction along the left edge of an area of young trees and on through scrub to join a road at Lumberpits.

5.

Turn left and, after a few yards go right over a stile, forward along a left field edge, through a small wood and on along the left edge of another field. Go over a stile in a crossing fence and head very slightly right across a field to enter woodland over a stile about 100 yards to the right of the left field corner.

Follow the main path through the wood, ignoring side paths, leave the wood over a stile and walk along a left field edge. Where the hedge on your left ends, go ahead for 30 yards, then bear left along a left field edge with an overgrown ditch on your left.

6.In the field corner, ignoring a rustic bridge on your left, go ahead into woodland and immediately turn squarely left along a tree-lined track, ignoring the first signed crossing path.

From the end of the enclosed track, go ahead along a left field edge and, where the hedge on your left ends, go straight ahead across a field, under minor power lines and into woodland. A few yards inside the wood, fork right and, after 40 yards, fork left. Leave the wood over a stile and go forward along a trodden path across neglected pasture.

Go through a hedge gap and turn left to follow a mown grassy headland and then a clear rutted track as it meanders between fields.

7.A few yards after entering woodland, turn right along a path with a high bank on your right.

Where this path, narrow and overgrown in places, opens out, go ahead along a right field edge, following it round to the left. In the field corner cross a stile and follow a path which leads out on to Pound Common.

At the first crossing path and a waypost, turn left on a clear path along the edge of the common. When level with a brick building on your left, where the path opens out, turn squarely right along the right edge of an open area for a few yards and then go left along a narrow path, heading just north of west. Go straight ahead across two driveways in succession.

At a nature reserve notice turn squarely left along a wide grass path. After 100 yards, fork right for a short distance out to the road opposite the entrance to the Romany Ridge car park.