Highs and Lows in the High Weald

Wadhurst is a wealthy and attractive East Sussex satellite village to Tunbridge Wells, just over the county border in Kent. On the North side of the village, the land undulates a little but basically slopes down to the reservoir called Bewl Water. On the other side and not obvious to those driving through, the land plunges steeply into unexpectedly deep valleys and intermittent hills. This is where we shall go today.

The walk is an adaptation of one in the Walking World web site. Theirs is a short but very varied jaunt out of the village. Due to the fact that the station is down in dip which is reached by tunnel from the Rother Valley, we have to take a longer hike to get to our destination which, ultimately, is Wadhurst Deer Park.

There are some lovely place names on this walk. Lorien Arboretum, Best Beech Hill, Tidebrook, The Wilderness, Snape Wood and Rockrobin. Wadhurst Park is an estate owned by the people who invented Tetrapak and obviously made a lot of money out of that. A large area of their land is fenced to keep deer in, rather than out as others do and footpaths go through this land.

Although this is not a long walk, there are hardly any flat stretches, apart from a bit of road walking near the beginning and again near the end, in the village itself, but after the hills and valleys of the countryside we have traversed, the gentle but lengthy walk back to the station will seem easy, particularly as we will visit one of the village pubs on the way.