A circuit at Horsmonden

Surrounded by well-tended orchards and prosperous-looking farms it’s hard to believe that Horsmonden reverberated to the din of blast furnaces and hammer forges long before the Industrial Revolution. Iron ore had been extracted in this part of the Kentish Weald since pre-Roman times, but during the 15th and 16th centuries, the smelting process became highly mechanised. Ironworks soon superseded the lucrative cloth industry as the major source of wealth and employment. Screened by trees off Furnace Lane lies a last vestige of Horsmonden’s iron industry. The 30-acre (12ha) lake known as the Furnace Pond, formed by damming a small stream, once drove the giant hammers used to beat the iron into shape. It has lost its mill wheel, but you can still see the spillway steps and circular basin. It is now a quiet haven for anglers and wildfowl.

Master of the furnace

In the early 17th century a local ironmaster named John Browne cornered the market in gunmaking, and his foundry west of Horsmonden was soon employing 200 men to cast cannons for England’s voracious munitions industry. One of his most successful lines was the Drake, a lightweight ship's cannon that soon became the weapon of choice, not just for England’s navy, but also for many of its European colonial rivals. Charles I visited Horsmonden’s famous furnace, and bestowed on Browne the title of ‘King’s Gunfounder’.

The arms trade made Browne a fortune, but royal patronage didn’t sway him from his Parliamentarian politics, and both sides used his guns during the Civil War. By the end of the century (50 years after Browne’s death), England had fought four costly battles against the Dutch, whose navy bristled with artillery forged by the great Wealden gunsmith.

From The Gun and Spitroast pub, walk up the right-hand side of the village green. At the top, take an alley next to Clock View Cottage to Back Lane. Turn left here, cross Orchard Crescent, and walk ahead past the school to join a track which bears right to a kissing gate and a footpath.

Bear to the right along poplar windbreaks between orchards for about 0.75 miles (1.2km), crossing an intersecting path. Then bear half left across the next orchard, taking the waymarked path to a ditch (plank footbridge) and stile at the hedgeline.

Carry on down sloping pastureland, aiming for the prominent buildings of Grovehurst Farm. A fenced path and a couple of stiles lead on to Grovehurst Lane. Turn left here for a few paces, then right at a pillar box, following a footpath sign past several smart country properties.

Continue for 300yds (274m), turning right when you meet a crossing path at the end of the first orchard. Continue to follow the windbreak trees downhill through several orchards, turning left just beyond a hedge (following waymarkers) towards Hook Wood.

Halfway through this last orchard, watch carefully for a double-spaced gap in the fruit-tree lines and turn right, then left at the hedge. In about 90 paces, cross a stile to your right. Turn left down the path through Hook Wood. Beyond a footbridge, bear slightly right across scrubland until you emerge on a metalled road. Immediately to your left is a bridge.

Turn right, away from the bridge, and follow the road (with care) for 500yds (457m). Then turn left down Brick Kiln Lane, signed ‘Horsmonden Church’ and carry on, weaving slightly uphill past tall hedges and banks of moss and ferns for 600yds (549m). Just past the entrance to Nevergood farmyard, take the footpath over a stile to your right, following it up the pasture to another stockfence. Cross a stile, turn left and follow the fence-line past Nevergood Farm (to your left) over another stile.

Now take the tunnel-like path between hedges to another stile, then bear right, following an alternative path to reach a metalled track. A house called Twin Valleys is signed to your right. Turn left, pass Hill Top and Hammonds on your left and take the lane right, opposite Lewes Heath House, following it downhill for 600yds (548m) to a bungalow called Garfields, on your left.

Keep ahead here along a green track (leaving the metalled lane) and trickle past more orchards, over a footbridge, through a kissing gate and out onto the main village street. Turn left past The Gun and Spitroast pub to return to the start.