Horsted Keynes and Furner's Green

3:42pm Monday 1st December 2008

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From the village of Horsted Keynes, this walk heads eastwards to encircle the nearby settlement of Danehill, crossing and recrossing two well-wooded valleys before returning along part of the Sussex Border Path, a longdistance walking route which sticks fairly closely to the boundary between East and West Sussex.

If you would like a longer outing, today’s circuit can be linked with the walk from Fords Green published in The Argus on June 28, and available for download from The Argus website. The short length of drive south of Allin’s Farm is common to both walks.

1. From Horsted Keynes village car park, return to the main road junction and turn right, signposted to Chelwood Gate, soon passing the pub on your left. Just past the village shop on your left, fork left along a drive, signed as a public footpath.

Pass immediately to the right of the village hall and follow the path ahead. Go through a kissing gate, keep to the right of a meadow to a second gate and then head half-left across two more fields.

Go through a third swing gate and turn right, along a field-edge at first, then an enclosed path. Join a concrete track and turn left out to a lane where you should turn right.

2. Where the lane bends right, turn left across an open area to enter and follow an enclosed path.

Beyond a wicket gate where the path comes out into the open, keep left along the left edge of two parcels of rough pasture.

At the bottom of the hill, turn left along a track and, after a few yards, fork right along a clear path which crosses a stream and continues through woodland. At a T-junction with another track, turn right and immediately fork right along a signed bridleway which climbs steadily up out of the valley, through woodland at first, then along a right field-edge.

In the field corner, disregarding the hedged path ahead, turn left along a right field-edge, following it round to the right and out to the A275. Turn left.

3. After 50 yards, turn right through a swing gate. The right of way is now far from obvious. Take as straight a line as you can, through an open-sided barn to join and follow a drive past a car parking area and to the right of a cottage with black-painted wooden walls.

Where the track turns right, go ahead along a way-marked downhill woodland path. After 100 yards, turn left and immediately fork right, still losing height. Soon after another path joins from the right, turn right over a footbridge and walk uphill along a narrow fenced path to join a lane.

Turn right and, shortly, at a road junction, turn left.

4. At a crossroads, next to the Coach And Horses pub, go ahead along Coach Lane. At another road junction, follow the access drive to a number of houses which starts almost opposite.

Just before reaching the bottom of the hill, turn right on a signed path which drops down across a lawn, crosses a stream and stile in a wooded dip and then climbs across pasture to join an enclosed shady path, where you should turn right. Beyond a cottage at Allin’s Farm, the path becomes an access drive.

5. After about a quarter of a mile, where the drive, now a quiet lane, turns right, go ahead along the drive to Colin Godman’s.

Shortly, where this drive bends left, go ahead over a stile and along a right field-edge with a good view ahead to the distant ridge of the South Downs.

After 250 yards, go over a stile a few yards to the right of a gate and follow a clear path through a wood. Go over another stile beside a gate and drop downhill, along the left edge of two large fields with the wood on your left.

A path then winds through the wood to a junction where you should turn right. After leaving the wood, go ahead across the drive to a large fishery and follow the unmade track ahead.

Where this track curves right, go forward along a clear, well-drained path, skilfully reclaimed from what was once an impassable morass. Follow it out to a road at Furner’s Green, where you should turn right. After 250 yards, turn left along an enclosed path which takes you through to the A275.

6. Cross the road and follow the drive to Heaven Farm opposite.

After passing to the left of the farm shop, turn right to drop downhill along a hard track. From the bottom of the hill, climb along a right field-edge, passing a still-small, Giant Sequoia tree, planted on the line of the Greenwich Meridian.

In the top field corner go left for 20 yards, right through a wood to a stile and then half-left along a left field-edge.

Approaching the field corner, veer half-right with the trodden path, soon along the left field-edge once again. In the field corner, join a drive and bear right to follow it out to a road.

7. Turn right and shortly go left along a path, which starts beside a garden and heads out across a field before joining a drive, part of the patchily signposted Sussex Border Path, which you will be following back to Horsted Keynes.

Towards the bottom of the hill, go left along a dirt track which soon bears right to cross the valley and climb through woodland, feeding into an access drive. Where the main drive eventually turns right, go ahead along the unmade access drive to a row of houses which takes you back to the start.

DISTANCE/TIME: Seven miles/three-and- a-half hours

BY CAR: Start from the village of Horsted Keynes, signposted from the B2028 to the north of Lindfield. It can also be approached from the A275 at Danehill. Park in the village car park, signed from the road next to the road junction in the centre of the village (GR 384282).

BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Hourly weekday bus service from Haywards Heath to Horsted Keynes.

WHAT’S UNDERFOOT: A moderately strenuous up-and-down route, mostly along good paths and tracks. May be muddy in places.

THIRSTY WORK: Pub at Horsted Keynes. Coach And Horses pub at point four. Tea rooms at Heaven Farm (point six), open most of the year but not in mid-winter. For more information, visit their web site at www.heavenfarm.co.uk

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