Oxen Hoath, Rats Castle, Old Soar Manor, Plaxtol Spout and Hamptons Mills

The walk begins in woodland at the car park in Dene Park, which in the Middle Ages was part of the hunting chase of North Frith belonging to the Clare family of Tonbridge Castle. The boundary stone marks the meeting point of the three parishes of Shipbourne, Hadlow, and West Peckham. The path runs along the top of an earth bank (six feet high in places) that marks the old boundary between Clare lands and lands belonging to the King, originally topped with an oak pale fence to keep deer within the chase.

The coppiced chestnut wood on the left is called Clearhedges (a corruption of 'Clare' hedges). Foxgloves and bluebells carpet the ground in spring, and in Frith Wood standard oaks grow among yews, beeches, hazels, and silver birches. Further along, the tower of Hadlow Folly (170 feet high) comes into view — the sole survivor of a 19th-century Gothic castle built, legend says, in an attempt to see the sea.

In the valley bottom is the site of a medieval moated farmhouse, where a square moat kept cattle in, kept marauders out, provided fish for the table, and drained water away. The path ascends through the old Deer Park of Oxen Hoath Manor to Gover Hill (500 feet high), managed by the Woodland Trust and offering magnificent views over the Bourne valley.

Ancient farmsteads lie in sheltered spots below the hill, including Rats Castle (a 15th-century timber-framed house encased in ragstone by Stephen Chilman in the 17th century). The route also traverses ancient holloways described as 'King's Highways' in 1495, passes Broadfield Farm with its 1700 twisted rope string course decoration, and reaches Old Soar Manor (preserving the stone private living quarters of a medieval knight from 1290). The walk concludes past Roughway Mill and the waterfall at Hamptons Mill before returning through Clearhedges to the boundary stone.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.