Parish Walk 6 - Ditchling Common/St. George's Retreat
A 3 mile circular walk to the north of Ditchling Common through woods and returning through the grounds of St. George's Retreat passing close to The Royal Oak.
Park at Ditchling Common Car Park. Start from the middle of the three parking areas and, with your back to the road, walk north over the grass bank ignoring the bridle-track to your immediate right to walk up the next right-hand path about 20 yards on. Co through the staggered rails, cross another bridlepath and continue ahead winding through the bushes and ignoring paths to right and left. Walk past a cottage hedge on your right and cross over the drive to the Industrial Complex then follow the path ahead until you reach a tile-hung cottage. Although the path appears to carry on, the public footpath turns to the right then immediately left to proceed between fences to a rough road. Turn left past cottages along the road until it becomes a grassy path, muddy in winter. Cross the wooden bridge and where the way divides take the left-hand path, walking with the field to your left.
Continue along the wooded path and you come to West Wood, an area of neglected coppice woodland planted with hornbeam which was generally used for firewood but being a hard wood was also used for the heads of mallets. Go over the ditch and, keeping the fence on your left, cross another ditch where you may glimpse the buildings of St. George's Retreat across the fields to your left. The fence represents the boundary between the parishes of Ditchling and Westmeston and you are walking on the Westmeston side. Pass a group of mature conifers on your left and the path now begins to go downhill as it leaves the wood.
When you reach the tile-hung cottage on your right, turn left over the stile beside a gate and walk along the edge of the field keeping the hedge to your right. Cross the next stile beside a gateway and continue in the same direction to climb the next stile and the path turns left passing to the right of a line of oak trees.
If, however, you feel thirsty or hungry and the time is right, you may wish to carry straight on after the stile for a few more yards and you will find a stile in the hedge to your right which leads you to the main road across the Common opposite The Royal Oak.
The walk continues between an orchard and chicken houses to the right and woodland known as Purchase Wood to the left. St. George's Retreat, to your right, was built in the latter half of the 19th Century as a Catholic Mental Hospital and is today still run by nuns who care for the elderly. The Retreat stands in a park-like setting where the lake attracts large numbers of Canada Geese and provides a fishing ground for heron.
Go over the stile and across the driveway to climb the next stile heading for the bottom left-hand corner of the field. Go through the gate beside the lake and up the farm track, passing to the right of the barn. The footpath now bends slightly to the right and up through the next field. Go over the stile in the hedge and cross the field passing a house on your right and the Industrial Complex on the left to cross another stile in the fence. Walk over the drive to a stile and drop down a steep bank, turning left along the hollow way and then right and sharp right again through the gorse onto Ditchling Common. Walk down the path and across the bridle-track, going through the staggered rails and follow the path down to the car park on your left.
Parish Walks - By Ditchling Westmeston and Streat Footpaths Society.