March 17, 1990: Ashurst to Crowborough

Because there was a long stretch needed to complete a fifth day on the Wealdway it was necessary for us to wait until there was sufficient daylight for us to get in some fourteen miles before sundown. Thus we waited for a warm and sunny Saturday in March before meeting at 8:15 in Victoria. I had Toby with me when I met the Lees.

We bought return tickets for Buxted and travelled south on the 8:36, changing to a waiting train in Oxted and completing the whole journey to Ashurst in an hour. There was a chance that Soledad Sprackling would meet us at Ashurst, but she was again a no show. What a contrast to last October. We had huddled under the roof of the halt’s lean-to, sheltering from the rain then. Now everything was gorgeous, sunny, and spring-like – with only a little chilly breeze to remind us how early in the year we were. I was thinking back to March 17, 1980, my second day on the South Downs Way: that had been a nasty, blustery wet day too.

We retraced our steps back to the Wealdway on country tracks used by the Sussex Border Path – the walk seemed to go so much faster than last fall. There were quite a few other walkers about today and I believe I counted up to 21 by noon. One group of them, sitting next to a ruin, had two dogs. Toby, running free most of the morning, had a good sniff.

We turned right to re-cross the railway track as soon as we had reached the WW proper. It seemed well-marked this morning, but I was also following instructions in Mason’s book and using the maps in the Wealdway Steering Group’s 1981 booklet. At the underpass we met a dour walker, coming in the other direction. Tosh claimed that in the early days of our walks I wouldn’t talk to any stranger on the footpath so she now congratulated me on my saying good morning to this chap.

We headed over a wooden footbridge, the first of a number of such structures spanning streams in hidden gullies in an otherwise flat expanse of meadow. We turned west when he had pulled level with Hale Court Farm and I put the dog back on lead as we neared this place on a farm track. The Lees lost a layer of clothing while I took a photo of the farm, the oast house, and the flowering trees. There was a sign warning us against dangerous geese as we turned south.

We followed a hedgerow as our track approached a wooded bank on our right, then slipped down on a little path (blocked by a fallen tree) to the meandering Medway. Toby was quite intrigued by a squirrel that he followed back up the bank, wading into a marshy meadow in pursuit. The dog was having the time of his life but he had to be reigned in as we reached a road opposite Summerford Farm.

The guidebooks indicate a half left here but this no longer seemed a way forward. We had to take a half right, encouraged by a public footpath plinth, in order to follow a track through the farmstead (which was being subdivided into flats). Toby found another stream for the briefest of drinks. He was becoming quite skilled in locating water, but he never seemed to take more than a sip.

Our farm track continued to the margin of some woods, where we again descended to the Medway, crossing it a last time and heading for a stile on the top of an old railway line, one that had been made into a bridlepath. From here there was a striking view of Withyham on the hill ahead. There was no path but it was easy to cross the large intervening stretch of grass. We came out on the B2110, where the dog went back on lead for the next mile and a half.

We had to head uphill, with the church on our left, soon leaving the village behind us for a private road in open country. There wasn’t much traffic and there were wonderful views, particularly to the right. We passed several cottages, including “Thatchers” – which had an appropriate roof. A young couple with two toddling daughters was walking ahead of us and they kept up such a remarkable pace that it was almost impossible for us to overtake them.

This we did at last, nearing the row of cottages at Fisher’s Gate. We were directed off our road to follow a half left through fields, our progress guaranteed by wire fences on either side of the track. We then emerged on some dirt roads, with quite a few other walkers about, and turned to the right to look for a cottage with “church windows.” This I found all right, but then nothing seemed to resemble what I had been expecting from the guidebooks and the suggestion that our track should “bear more marks of use” than any other seemed completely useless. So also were the maps, which indicated a large area of forest to our left. In fact, sometimes there weren’t any trees at all in any direction. A couple were heading uphill toward us on one of the tracks, but I didn’t head downhill at this point. This was a mistake.

I kept as close as I could to the forest on our left, hoping to find the Wealdway turnoff on that side but I found nothing that resembled what I was looking for. The landscape had been harvested! Here I was looking for the Five Hundred Acre Wood, the home of Winnie the Pooh, and all about me was scorched earth. It was particularly disconcerting not to spot the pond with modern house that I had been promised. There did seem to be a pond on our right, which I found encouraging, but none of the other gates or turn-offs promised now materialized and eventually I called a halt so that Harold could pull out the OS map.

It was not much help; its pattern of woodland vegetation did not seem to correspond to our situation at all. There was a track penetrating the wood on our left and I thought this might be our turnoff but it was choked with fallen tress. What I should have done was have a look at my compass. For when I decided that we would continue forward in search of the B2026 I was heading not west, as I assumed, but south; it was high noon and so the sun was not of much use just now.

We followed some forestry tracks (the forest was gone) and inched toward a house of the horizon. Its back yard was fenced so I continued left on a track that seemed to be heading in the right direction. It soon became very muddy but just when it was getting really slithery we came up opposite the whizzing cars of the highway and we scrambled out to this. If only I had used my compass here. I was so convinced that I had reached the B2026 and that a turn to the left would allow us to continue in our southerly direction that I ignored this vital step.

I now proposed to continue south on the B2026 until its junction with the B2188 – where I knew I could locate the Weald Way after its progress through Ashdown Forest. We headed downhill. Off to our right in the valley bottom was a sizable community that did not match my expectations of the terrain at all. As a matter of fact I was a bit disconcerted to be going downhill. The Lees were agitating for a lunch stop but I wanted to escape the highway and the best way to do this was to rediscover the Wealdway.

After a considerable descent we at last reached a crossroads; this proved to be very confusing. There was a sign identifying the B2188 and pointing an arm toward the south (I think I did get my compass out here), but I couldn’t locate on the map the road we had just used to get to this junction. Our problems were compounded by the angle of the two roads that met at this spot. They both headed off in a southerly direction and I assumed that the sign pointing toward Uckfield could not refer, at the least, to the road we had just been walking on. I was wrong in all my assumptions.

We headed along the Uckfield Road, or so I thought, soon beginning to climb a very steep hill. I convinced myself that this must be Camp Hill that we were working our way up, but when I paused to have a look at a mailbox my heart sank. We were on Marden’s Hill – this I could see at last on the map. Somehow, I still vainly hoped, Marden’s Hill might be a generic name for the entire postal district. In some confusion I gave way at last to the Lee’s importunities and followed them along a track on the left where, not far from the road, they selected a leafy patch to sit down on.

I let the dog off lead – he had been on it for miles with all the road walking. He had some water and some biscuits and I made myself two sandwiches. Of course I was still quite uncertain about my whereabouts and anxious to get back on the road to find out more. But something happened that caused a considerable delay.

We were yakking away peaceably when out from behind a line of bushes, which had screened from our view another hidden track, two horses suddenly emerged. Toby went crazy with fear, howling in protest. I tried to grab his collar, but he slipped away, barking loudly in his anxiety. The lead horse, a very large animal with a small thirteen year-old girl aboard, shied away from this noise and, as his hindquarters gained elevation, his rider, who had dropped the reigns, slipped off her mount, crashing through the bare branches of a low tree on her way to the ground.

“Are you all right, Sally?” her friend enquired from the back of a much more sensibly sized beast. “Yes,” Sally replied, amid sobs. I grabbed the dog, who was now safely over his scare (he had never seemed to be as bothered by horses as our Bertie) and Tosh rushed forward to give the fallen rider any assistance. I had to get Toby away from the animals and so I walked up the path a bit with him. My view was impeded but Harold kept giving me bulletins on what was happening. Needless to say I was in a considerably agitated state.

Sally seemed to be all right; nothing was broken. But she did have a bloody nose, which Tosh tended to, and was quite dizzy. Tosh sat with her for about fifteen minutes. Sally wanted to get back on her horse, whose reigns she was holding even while she sat on the ground, but this seemed unwise since she had trouble standing up without feeling woozy. We all agreed that we would not continue with our walk until we had seen that Sally had some assistance.

After a while Tosh decided that she would accompany the young friend back to the stables and get someone to drive up to this spot. They started off but Sally’s horse wouldn’t be left behind, broke away from the young girl’s grip, and trotted after the others. Tosh caught this horse and lead it safely back to the stables – where they confirmed that Sally had fallen off her horse many times in the past.

Harold took Toby for me and I sat down with Sally. She was in excellent spirits, a really nice little girl. She drank some water but refused food and any extra clothing, although I was certain she must be shivery. She told me a good deal about her horse: it was our bad luck that this animal, which she had owned for only two months, had been bitten by a dog – hence his aversion. She located our position on the OS map and advised me on how to get to the nearest train station.

Her nose had stopped bleeding, but she had quite a bad cut above her swollen lip and I could see that she might need a stitch or two. “Oh good,” she said, “that means I get to miss double French on Monday to see the doctor.” “No, I said, “you must promise me you’ll go right to casualty this afternoon.”

An older woman and her daughter came by on horses as well. She stopped to joke with Sally. I asked her about our whereabouts as well and she gave me a set of directions to Eridge Station that only an idiot savant could follow. They rode off as Sally announced, “Well, I’m not seeing everything twice now.”

It seemed to take forever for Tosh to return. A car pulled in a short distance away and three girls came running up. Tosh reported that one of them, hearing of the accident, had said, “Don’t tell me Sally’s fallen off again.” One of them was shouting triumphantly, “I’ve got the first aid kit,” but when she saw Sally’s cut she agreed with me that this required a trip to the surgery. Her friends helped Sally to her feet and put their arms around her shoulders. Then they pranced back to the car giggling – and they were gone. How deep the silence seemed after they had departed.

We packed up our gear in shock and headed back to the road. I now had to tell the Lees that I knew where we were and that there was no hope of getting to Buxted today. The mood of the walk spoiled anyway, I suggested we head for the train station in Crowborough and this they agreed to do.

Alas, we were at the top of Marden’s Hill. The road I had taken to be the B2026 had been the B2188. We had been traveling south not west to reach it. This would have been okay if I had turned right; by turning left I was leading us back in a northerly direction! The crossroads must have been Friar’s Gate; a pity I did not believe that the southerly pointing arm of the sign was referring, in fact, to the very road we had just descended. Denial was too strong and I had preferred to head up the wrong hill on the wrong road. Never had I gotten so far off track. We were certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time for little Sally.

We turned left on the Crowborough Road and were soon back in suburbia. It was not too unpleasant, with pavements here and there, but I was very gloomy and Tosh kept telling me that I was not to blame myself.  We reached the crossroads in Crowborough, passing shops now, and continued on toward the railway station at Jarvis Brook. It was Sally who had given me this route.

I knew that if we put some speed on we could catch a train about 4:00. In this way the Lees were asleep in their seats at least two hours before we had anticipated. Toby was zonked out too. We changed trains at Oxted, though there was a wait here, and we almost had to leave Harold behind in the loo when our Victoria connection came in. I was back on Morshead Road at about 5:45 after one of our worst days on the trail ever.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 6: Friar’s Gate to Buxted