About the Walk s4
My Favourite Pub Walks .com
Dedicated to Pub Walkers across the UK
Kings ArmsMidhurst Road, Fernhurst, Sussex, GU27 3HA
Tel. 01428 652005
Walk Details
Time: 1 hr 30 mins
Distance: Approx 3.0m
Level/grade: Easy walking but with half a dozen stiles.
Paths: Field and woodland paths and tracks and some quiet country lanes. One busy road to cross by the Kings Arms
Landscape: Meadow, farmland, woodland and stream.
Overview
Here is a walk with a stream and a meadow, a pub and a pinewood, buzzards and bluebells.
The Kings Arms is a friendly 17th Century pub full of character and a relaxed charm. It prides itself in providing locally sourced food, which is cooked fresh daily, and quality cask ales.
The snack menu offers a good variety of fillings for sandwiches and jacket potatoes at £5.95 (April 2009) including a tempting bacon, brie and cranbury combination. Main courses average around £10 including homemade Steak and Guinness Pie or Wild Boar and Apple Sausages and Mash.
The Kings Arms also has a garden terrace and it's magnificent Kings Barn is available for larger groups and events.
We first walked this route in April 2009 when the Kings Arms hosted a fundraising event as part of the Canine Partners Bluebell Walks Campaign. Canine Partners is a charity which provides training assistance dogs to transform the lives of people with disabilities.
Directions have been written by Richard Williamson, regular columnist for the Chichester Observer, and reproduced here with his kind permission.
Directions to Start
The route directions are shown from the pub car park. If you are having refreshments in The Kings Arms afterwards then you can park here during your walk. The pub can be found on the A286 (Midhurst Road), half a mile south of Fernhurst.
Grid Ref. SU 895 269
OS MAPS really enhance enjoyment of pub walks and taking one with you is highly recommended. The 1:50,000 Chichester & the South Downs OS Landranger Map is suitable but we prefer the 1:25,000 Haslemere and Petersfield OS Explorer Map as regular walkers. The laminated Explorer Map Active is more durable and waterproof but does of course cost more.
The Walk
RW_Kings-Arms-Fernhurst_350.doc
My Favourite Pub Walks .com
Dedicated to Pub Walkers across the UK
1. From the Kings Arms take care as you cross the road on dangerous corner and over two stiles to follow path along lap-board fence and under American red oaks. Eventually reach meadow bordered by old oaks. This is Cooksbridge Meadow nature reserve managed by Sussex Wildlife Trust.
2. Woodland strip to left bordering a tributary of the Rother is carpeted in spring with bluebells, wood anemones and stitchwort. Blackcap warblers, chiffchaffs and great spotted woodpeckers breed here.
3. Downhill to follow stream right, then left on purple arrow noting old willow damaged but surviving on opposite bank. Left on to road and bridge over stream. Then right though field gate on yellow arrow into damp horse pasture with stream now to your right.
4. Cross two stiles as you climb to stables. At Bridgelands House, note little Monkey Puzzle. Road bends left to find a large pond on which I saw two moorhens last week.
5. As you walk back uphill the Temple of the Winds come into view, the edge of Blackdown Hill where Tennyson walked each day. Right on road keeping derelect greenhouses to left.
6. Far ahead note geometric patterns of plantations from Bexley Hill to Verdley Hill at Henley. Then steep downhill between banks where catsear grows, with betony and wild strawberry, and there are rabbits among more bluebells.
7. Cross our little stream again and at once turn right, soon turning left uphill where the clay shows roe deer footprints. Then at top enter the spruce woods and soon downhill to cross another trickle, noting hard ferns growing under plank bridges. Alder and birch grove home to willow tits,
8. Now follow yellow arrows for 700m through spruce wood, then right on fingerpost along stone track. Stay on stone track, now with blue arrow, until you reach purple arrow cross-tracks where turn right.
9. Stay on bridlepath for 800m, north, when you will find again that big old damaged willow by the stream then turn left back into nature reserve and back to Kings Arms and Morris wheels and cup of tea at the bar.
RW_Kings-Arms-Fernhurst_350.doc