Welcome back to Kent and Sussex Walks. Today we did a nice familiar walk straight from Tristan’s house in Hawkhurst, a walk I did a lot in lockdown. Today though we stopped off at the end for some food at my local The Eight Bells Pub, which has recently had a bit of a turnaround with a new head chef and new kitchen. The parking for this walk is at the pub and after crossing the green and heading down the hill it takes you past Tristan’s old-school Marlborough house, which unfortunately is closing down, no doubt to be turned into housing, but for now at least you can walk through their lovely grounds.
There is one section down a quiet private road before section through woodlands, crop fields and meadows. Mighty oak. We stopped off to pick some blackberries and man what a year it is for them. They’re so early and so much more juicy than normal. There is a great orchard too along the way with apples that are beginning to bear fruit, maybe we should have scrumped some to go with the blackberries. There are a couple of sections that still required a nettle beater stick, but we were relatively unscathed passing through and there were a few stiles in this walk but they would be easy to get a pooch through.
The Eight Bells was lovely, the staff are really friendly and there was a great busy atmosphere. The food was superb too, Chloe really enjoyed her roasted red pepper homemade butter with sourdough bread and she pinched some of Tristan’s beautiful cauliflower cheese, yum yum!
So if you’d like to do this walk, click the link below to find the ordinance survey route. See you in the next one!
