The Kent and East Sussex Railway walks.

Two walks:   1. Rolvenden to Tenterden - only 3 miles!
                      
                       2. Wittersham Road to Northiam  - a liitle longer: 4 miles!

Railway operating days:  Trains are in service over most weekends from April until October and most Wednesdays and Thursdays from May until until September - that's in addition to other occasional days.  In August the trains run every day. A timetable is available from Tenterden Town Station, Station Road, Tenterden, Kent,  TN30 6HE.
Telephone: 01580 765155; Timetable enquiries: 01580 762943.  Web site: www.kesr.org.uk

Walk 1:  Taking the train from Tenterden to Rolvenden and walking back. 3 miles.

Useful maps:  Ordnance Survey Explorer 125 or Landranger 189

Getting there:
By road:  Tenterden is on the A25 road between Ashford and Hastings.  Tenterden station has free parking for their passengers.  Its grid reference is 882335.
By public transport: Arriva bus 12 from Maidstone to Tenterden  via Headcorn National Rail station runs mostly hourly Monday to Saturday.  Tenterden station is located in Station Road (not surprisingly!) which is off the High Street from the Vine Inn. 

Eating out: Tenterden station refreshment room (formally a motor services waiting room in Maidstone!) serves 'a range of traditional favourites' on railway operating days. There are also numerous pubs and cafes in the town itself.

Visitor attractions:  An award winning museum at Tenterden station commemorates the railway's founder, Colonel Stephens, and the museum in Station Road charts the history of Tenterden. A heritage trail leaflet for this delightful town is available from the information office in the High Street. At Rolvenden station where the walk starts, a public gallery affords a truly atmospheric view over the locomotive yard. 

Summary of the walk: This easy-going walk enjoys the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, expressed here in a varied landscape of gentle undulating hills, woodland and beautiful meadows. Throughout the walk there are three crossing-points of the railway and  excellent views of passing trains.

The walk:
1.  Turn right out of Rolvenden station into the A28 and join a farm track on the left after 50 yards. This is signed as leading to New Barn Farm and takes you firstly across the railway then uphill to the farm itself. Looking back as you ascend, you have a great view of the railway as it sweeps its way round to the station.
2.  On arrival at the farmyard turn right in hairpin fashion and enter a field on the right, aiming for an exit near the far extremity of a wood. Keep straight on downhill in the next two fields, passing through an intermediate gate in the process and meeting two stiles and a footbridge in the far left-hand corner. once in the next field walk parallel to the railway embankment (which will be on you right) and make your way to another footbridge. 
3. Turn right to cross the footbridge, and very soon the railway line. Turn left from the railway and soon go over a stile in a field corner. Once over that stile you should cross the next field uphill and roughly half-right (110-120 degrees). If you aim slightly left of the barns ahead - which will soon come into view - you will be more or less on the correct course. Cross a stile over to the left of the barns and continue in the same direction as before (1/2 right with respect to the stile) but now in a very large field, and with the railway in view down to your left. 
4.  You should arrive at a road about 50 yards to the left of its junction with the A28 road. Cross the road to Hirst Close opposite and follow it uphill to its very end, where it connects with a narrow footpath between gardens and by a brick wall. Turn left when the path terminates and go downhill alongside a line of conifer trees to a stile on the left. You may be surprised that this places you in a cemetery, but delighted, as I was, with its many benches. If you proceed downhill on the grass to meet the cemetery drive, you will approach an assembly of these benches at the bottom of the slope. Just the spot for a tea break (assuming you have brought some with you!) while listening out for trains passing nearby. For a view of them, you should go through the gap in the trees ahead. 
5.  While taking the usual precaution to 'stop, look and listen', you should go through that gap and over the railway. Having done that go forward and soon downhill through fields to a footbridge at the bottom. Keep right from the footbridge and walk to the far end of a very long tree-lined meadow. Crossing a footbridge there, climb the next meadow to the far right-hand corner, ignoring a gate on the right prior to the corner. A narrow path will the take you under trees and eventually to Tenterden station car park. Next stop, the station tea room!

'Newenden' heads towards Tenterden and crosses our path

 

Its all quiet at Tenterden on a sunny summer's day

Walk 2:  Taking the train from Northiam to Wittersham Road and walking back - 4 miles.

Useful maps:  Ordnance Survey Explorer 125 or Landranger 188 and (for Northiam station) 189.

Getting there: 
By road: Northiam station is on the A28, 1/3 mile south of Newenden and 7 miles west of Rye - via the A268.  Its grid reference is 835265.
By public transport: Bus 340 from Hastings railway station to Tenterden calls at Newenden hourly am, infrequently pm on Monday to Friday. On Saturday it runs  hourly am and pm. Ask the driver (nicely!) to stop at Northiam station.

Eating out:  Northiam station has its own refreshment room. At Newenden, which is 1/3 mile before the end of the walk, you will find the White Hart pub - which serves meals - and the Riverside Tea garden.

Visitor attractions: There are two local visits that you might like to reserve for another day: The lovely gardens at Great Dixter, Northiam, and the National Trust's Bodiam Castle, which is a short walk from Bodiam station. Neither of these are on our walk.

Summary of the walk: The contrast between this and the previous walk could hardly be greater. It crosses a flat landscape of pastures and arable fields, intersected by numerous waterways and drainage ditches. Views of the railway are at first distant, which creates an atmosphere all of its own, especially as the sound of a steam engine radiates far and wide. Before you reach the one and only crossing of the railway, views are closer at hand. Beyond the railway the path follows the attractive river Rother as far as Newenden, a delightful village with a cricket green, a church and a pub, and a fine stone-built bridge.

The Walk: 

1.  Go left out of Wittersham Road station (at the level crossing) and walk with care for 300 yards to a footpath on the left almost opposite Maytham Farm. Walk a succession of two field paths at right angles to the road (110 degrees), crossing a foot bridge at the half-way point. Aim for a gap in the trees ahead, and once there, turn sharp right at a crossing and into a bridleway. The bridleway follows follows a ditch on the right and curves round to the right after 100 yards or so. It soon curves back to the left and in due course meets road, the one we left earlier.
2.  Turn left at the road and almost immediately right into a wide farm track, which leads to Waytham Wharf, a farm. Ignore a branch on the left by a post box, and veer right between farm buildings. Cross a wide waterway, Hexton Channel, soon after leaving the farm, and continue forward. The right of way is now on the grass alongside the right-hand fence, although the farm track runs more or less parallel and meets up at the next gate. If your timing is right, you may have sight and sound of a steam engine as it passes well over to the right. You will be glad of that telephoto lens on your camera, or that pair of binoculars!
3.  The track follows a left-hand water channel and describes a S-bend before it comes within close range of the tree-shaded New Barn Farmhouse. When you are just 50 yards before the farmhouse, you should cross a ditch (at a gate) and turn right immediately to follow the ditch. Soon enter a large pasture and continue forward, following a slight left-curve in the ditch at the start. Now the order of the day is to 'take care', so that you avoid arriving at an impossible ditch - as I once did!  Pass to the right of a band of trees that bisects the field 1/4 mile ahead, and soon enter the right-hand field in order to follow a left-hand ditch. This ditch curves round to the right and escorts you to a crossing of the railway at 'Rother Bridge North'.
4. Now you can relax; and  hopefully watch a passing train. Beyond the crossing, its now a matter of following the river Rother for one mile to Newenden. Before crossing the A28 there, you will need to walk alongside the cricket green, passing to the left of the pavilion as you go. You may however wish to rest awhile before proceeding; or visit either The White Hart pub to your right, or the tea garden by the river to your left.
5.  Refreshed and re-energized, cross with great care the fine stone-built bridge over the river Rother and immediately join Ferry Way, a roadside path on the right. This will take you all the way back to Northiam station.

The Kent and East Sussex story.
With its 22 miles and 12 stations, the Rother Valley Railway came into being in the year 1900. Soon renamed The Kent and East Sussex Railway, it was built by the legendary Colonel H.F. Stephens, and was the first Light Railway in the world. Such railways conformed to the Light Railway Act of 1896, which allowed rural railways to be constructed economically with only basic passenger facilities and with weight and speed restrictions. This railway linked two main lines - from Headcorn on the London to Ashford line to Robertsbridge on the London to Hastings line.
  After more than 50 years service, the railway was closed to passengers 1954. Twenty years later it reopened, in part as a volunteer-run heritage railway. By April 2000 it had reached Bodium, near the National Trust's Bodium Castle.
  Perhaps the railway was most fondly remembered for it conveyance of thousands of hop-pickers each year to the farms around Bodium. For present-day travellers on the railway there is a unique opportunity to enjoy views of the countryside around the river Rother - views that only the railway can fully provide.

Hexden Channel

The river Rother at Newenden