Hastings to Battle, with quite a long detour!

This walk is approximately 18 miles long, but with coming from home, and allowing for slopes up and downhill, when we walked it at the weekend it was likely over 20 miles long, it took us about 10 hours with stops for food and drink, and a few parts were particularly muddy, which slowed us down a bit... Plus the weather changed from sunny to hailstones and back again with regularity, making us take off/put on cagoules, don/take off caps and shades etc etc... We started from home, but my first photograph is looking down at Rock-a-Nore Road and the Stade from Tackleway.

We decided to avoid taking the whole walk via Saxon Shore Way, particularly as a section is cut off, and headed up the East Hill and to Barley Lane, rejoining the Saxon Shore Way at Fairlight.

We often sit at the bench above when walking this way, and the amount of surrounding blossom provided a new image for me.

View from the bench

From Fairlight, the streets of which we are very familiar with, it's a relatively short walk over to Pett Level (above), where we both ate our first sandwiches of the journey.

We then crossed over to the Royal Military Canal (website), constructed over 200 years ago to help defend the country from the threat of a French invasion under Napoleon Bonaparte. Walking eastwards along the canal and the photograph above provides evidence of the possible consequence for people not controlling their pets, that is for the pet, not the human 😉

Royal Military Canal

We carried on down the canal to just before the New Gate at Winchelsea, then crossed to the north side and headed back westwards, when we reached Pannel Valley Reserve we looked out from 2 of their birdwatching hides.

View from Hide, Pannel Valley Reserve

We then headed northwards, joining the 1066 Country Walk, towards Icklesham, passing this windmill and home, in a field where on our last visit it was full of mushrooms and rabbits, apparently the wrong time of year and day this Saturday.

We reached the parish church of Icklesham, All Saints with St Nicholas, a 12th century Norman building, with additions and restoration up to and including the 19th century (website), and entered as we hadn't visited for a few years, well worthwhile.

We then crossed the road and walked up to the Queens Head Inn (website), early 17th century buildings that merged and were turned into a public house 200 years later in 1832. I was pleasantly surprised to chat to Martin, one of the two lads soon to be opening a micropub in Bexhill, who was working behind the bar! Excellent looking food being served up here, indeed, and 6 real ales, which we did sample (though not all, still miles to walk), and food-wise, we had to wait to eat our second sandwich a little later.

We had by then rejoined the 1066 Country Walk, and headed roughly westwards along it all the way from Icklesham, on the way spotting these rather delightful primroses by one of the short pieces of road we passed along, until we reached Westfield.

Having negotiated our way through the streets of Westfield, not so obvious a route, but my Ordnance Survey map certainly helped, we then again found ourselves wandering across fields, including the rapeseed field above. Until now, we'd not really encountered heavy mud, but that was made up for by 2 encounters before we reached Great Wood, to the west of Battle! Mr Hubris now gave us a good kicking, with brambles and barbed wire fencing helping give us a good scratching too, we had been really happy that we were so near to Battle with reasonably clean boots...

Anyway, we coped with the mud and stinky water, and crossed Great Wood, picking up speed, until coming out onto the road near the Grade II listed Battle railway station. This fun wee building was built in the mid 19th century, opening on the 1st of January 1852, and was where we caught a train back to Hastings, thank you very much. The interesting people also waiting at the station, including one very eccentric, could help me write an essay, but maybe for another day...

We got home half an hour later, great day!