The High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is one of ’s Finest Landscapes, protected Walk Facts & for its historic character of: rolling hills draped with small Distance: 3.7 miles/6.1 km. irregular fields; abundant woods and hedges; scattered farmsteads; and sunken lanes. It covers parts of 4 counties: Time: 2.5 hours (depending on conditions and C.E (VA) Primary School East Sussex, West Sussex, and Surrey and has an area numbers and excluding stops). of 1,457 square kilometres (570 square miles). Description: A circular walk through woods, fields High Weald Welly Walk and orchards, with an optional diversion to visit High Weald Heroes is a primary school programme Cinderhill Woods. Be aware that there are some that encourages children to do the following actions: School busier roads to cross and there a couple of steeper Explore the local countryside around your sections school - there’s nowhere else quite like it. Take Care of your local environment as you walk. Remember to follow the Countryside Code. For more information, visit RISK ASSESSMENT - Points to consider www.naturalengland.org.uk • Please use with an Ordnance Survey Explorer Map. Enjoy! yourself and have fun outdoors • Wear sturdy footwear or wellingtons, being aware whatever the weather. of uneven ground and fallen trees, especially near water and in wet weather. • Long trousers are advised. Find out about • Check the weather - waterproofs or hats and sun the habitats you walk cream might be needed. through - discover the • Taking a drink with you is advisable. story behind the landscape. To find out • Consider adequate adult to child supervision ratios more go to the learning zone on as paths are narrow, the group will spread out and www.highweald.org there are roads and stiles to cross. • Plants such as nettles and brambles can sting and Be proud of your countryside. Tell other people scratch; berries from plants can cause stomach about the special landscape around upsets if eaten. your school - even better, take them • There are no toilet facilities, so we recommend on your school’s Welly Walk and that toilet paper and hand wipes are taken as a show them! precaution. • Everyone must clean their hands before eating. Produced by the High Weald AONB Unit with support from: • Remember that a large group of people can be intimidating, especially to animals. • Footpaths and rights of way are subject to change. The walk should always be checked for new risks before venturing out, especially when planning to take groups of children. • Remember to follow the Countryside Code. www.highweald.org Be a High Weald Hero - you can make a difference 1 2 3 4 5 6

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For guidance only; actual conditions may be different from those shown, depending on the weather and time of year. Photo guide and route description Turn left out of the school drive and follow the pavement until you see a gap in the hedge on the left 1 . Go through the gap and walk straight up the hill through the orchard. Turn right at the top of the orchard and then left, through the gap in the fence by the telegraph pole 2 . Keep to the left and then walk left on the tarmac drive. Go through a gate into another orchard, turning right and then left, keeping to the path. Continue following the path, with the orchard on your left and the tall tree line on your right 3 . Keep going straight on. The path continues for some time and will eventually bend round to the left. Follow it round until you can turn right through a gap in the hedge 4 . Walk along next to a reservoir (on your left). At the end of the reservoir go through the opening in the hedge and walk straight on until you reach a hedge and footpath sign. Walk on through this gap (hedge and fenced on your left) and come out onto the tarmac track. Walk left down the track until you reach the main road. Cross diagonally right 5 over to a lane. Continue down here and you will reach a three-way junction. Bear right at the and continue forward with open views to your right. Where the path splits, bear right 6 and walk along a narrow, grassy pathway that heads downhill, along the edge of a field. At the end of the line of fencing, turn left and walk across the field, keeping close to the hedge on your right. Walk across the field towards the path, and metal squeeze gate, leading into the woods. Follow the path into the woods until it forks. Take the narrow right hand fork 7 and follow the path straight on until you reach the main road. Turn right at the road and walk up to the bend. Carefully cross over and turn left down Maycotts Lane. If you want to visit Cinderhill Wood, follow the signs to ‘Nature Conservation Area’, just after this point. Walk along Maycotts Lane for some distance, until you reach the pond and village green . Turn left to walk towards the pond and main road. Cross over the main road, following signs for the High Weald Landscape Trail 8 , and go down the right hand side of the white weatherboarded house and wooden gate, following the footpath. When entering the field keep close to the hedge on your left. At the end of the hedge, bear diagonally right to walk past a wooden post on your left 9 . Follow the path as it curves left at the next footpath sign. Keep to the edge of the orchard with tall trees on your left hand side and you will soon reach a stile in the bottom left corner. Climb the stile 10 and follow the path, which leads to an orchard. Turn right and head towards the houses and a gate. Pass Orchard Rise cottage on your right.

Come out on to the main road and turn right. After a short distance turn right down a lane (signposted Goshen Farm) and then left before the first house. Follow this path and then go left along the woven wooden fence. Come out at a road and turn right to walk along and find the footpath on the left 11 . Go up the steps and follow the path straight on until you reach the lane. Turn right, and then left down the lane. Look out for Southfield Cottages on your left, and turn in here, onto the gravel drive. Go forward through the kissing gate following the path. Follow the track, eventually crossing a small ford and bridge 1 2 . Keep going straight on through the orchard and, at the junction of footpaths turn left to walk up the slope. Continue up the slope through the field and follow the path along a garden boundary. Go through a gap in the hedge at the top of the field by the main road. Come out onto Brenchley Road, turn right and you will soon be back at school!

Key Look out for... 6 Brenchley & 5 Windmill Matfield School Cinderhill Wood (Disused) Sandhurst Lane WALK ROUTE 7 4

Maycotts Lane Reservoir 3 1 numbered views School ! historic 2 routeway Foxhole Lane Oast Houses Duck & Drake road 8 Matfield suggested Pond 1 activity point 9 Brenchley Road 10 ! Toad Hall watercourse Goshen Farm take care, busy ! road 11 This map is reproduced from Ordnance Survey material Alder Lane 12 with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. ©Crown Copyright . Unauthorised reproduction infringes Orchards Crown Copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Kent County Council - 1000 19238, 2012. Southfield Cottages A Medieval Landscape Hop Farming The Garden of England By the 14th century, the High Weald Early in the 15th century people started to use hops in ale to Kent is famous for its orchards was settled and looked much the add flavour and as a preservative. Initially the hops came from full of fruit and this walk same as it does today. The Flanders. However, when a tax was introduced on imported passes through some landscape of the High Weald is goods, home-grown hops increased. They became a distinctive beautiful High Weald essentially medieval - this can feature of the eastern end of the High Weald. orchards. The history of fruit be said of few other places in the growing in the Weald has country. With their heavy clay soils Hop plants can grow up created a uniquely ‘textured’ and steep slopes, many High Weald to 6 metres so were fields have never been ploughed up supported by groups of 3 countryside. Neat rows and to grow crops and have or 4 chestnut poles. angular patterns of orchards traditionally been used for rearing Chestnut poles were contrast with the smooth cattle and sheep. favoured because the sweeps of pastures, shaws and wood was strong and woods. more resistant to rot, ideal for slim poles. In ancient times, crab apples, High Weald Ponds sloes and gean (wild cherry), The Weald has one of the highest concentration of ponds in Higher beer sales were were the only types of fruit available. In the 16th . Many ponds have developed because of good news for the century apples, pears and plums were increasingly planted in human activity e.g. quarrying, while others were created as coppice workers who the High Weald. drinking ponds for farm animals. produced the poles. To meet the demand for In the 19th century Victorians, who were very enthusiastic In the High Weald, some large ‘hammer ponds’ can also be poles more chestnut about growing fruit, developed over 1,500 different apple found. These were created to power the bellows and hammers coppice was planted varieties. The apples were used for cooking, eating and of the iron industry. across the area. making cider. Some of the fruit you will see growing in orchards today includes cherries, plums, pears and apples. The hop industry provided a lot of useful employment for Black, red and white currants, gooseberries, strawberries, poorer families, including children as young as five. In the raspberries and other fruit can also be found growing in the summer, workers from London’s East End fought their way area. onto crowded trains heading for the hop fields. In the High Weald, orchards were particularly plentiful in a belt around Matfield and Brenchley. They were called Watch the ‘Ruby’ video at www.highweald.org to ‘gardens’ to avoid the tax on farmland. The fruit trees were tall learn more about hop farming. and widely spaced, with sheep grazing the grass underneath.

Older, traditional orchards offer a variety of wildlife habitats After the harvest, the hops were dried in oast houses to all year round. In spring, blossom provides a source of pollen prevent them rotting. Fires were lit at the bottom of the oast Local Building Materials and hot air rose up through the wooden floor where the hops for bees and moths; in summer the leafy canopy is a perfect The traditional building materials and styles of the High Weald were spread out. The steam escaped through the pointed cowl nesting site for many birds, including woodpeckers, are an essential part of the landscape’s distinctive character. in the roof. The work was done by skilled men who lived in chaffinches and treecreepers. Even the fallen fruit in Autumn The building materials have come, in fact, from that very the oast till the work was finished. is a good food source for foraging creatures such as badgers landscape - so it is hardly surprising and hedgehogs. that they blend in so well. Oasts were originally square but after 1840 were built round because the circulation of hot air was better. Links with the area’s wooded past are evident in the number of timber-framed and weather-boarded Today, only a handful of hop buildings, whilst the widespread gardens and breweries remain use of sandstone, bricks and tiles and most oast houses have been is testimony to the High Weald’s converted for residential use. underlying geology of sandstone and clay. How many oast houses can you find on this Welly Walk? Look out for different styles as you What local building materials can you spot on the travel around the High Weald. houses that you pass?