Hilaire Belloc’s famous book Four Men and a Farrago is an account of four men walking across Sussex from Robertsbridge to Harting in 1902. One of the characters is Myself (Belloc) and the other three are Grizzlebeard, Sailor and Poet (widely believed to be Belloc’s alter egos). Along the way, they discuss many issues: local history and folklore, politics, community and life generally.
In 2026, I am re-walking the route with three main objectives:
- To see what has changed, what has been lost, what is at risk of being lost, what remains the same and what we must try to preserve?
- To seek out the women who are missing from Belloc’s stories. In Four Men and a Farrago, women are notably absent from the various historical accounts and stories. Who were the women who lined this route whose stories Belloc missed out (AKA The Missing Women)?
- To get a female perspective of the many issues that concerned Belloc, as they may be relevant today.
The missing women
If I had hoped to find the occasional story of an interesting woman connected with this route, my hopes were more than surpassed. I found myself tripping over interesting women, past and present, at almost every corner. So much so, in the end, I have had to give them their own article:
The Missing Women of Belloc’s Sussex: Robertsbridge to Heathfield
In conversation with Belloc and Sussex
The Four Men and a Farrago touches on a wealth of issues and ideas about life, society and Sussex. Importantly, it has a sense of urgency about it, and Belloc is clearly concerned about modernisation, change and what we risk losing. I wanted to pick up those threads of conversation and discuss them with my female walking companions. In the end, I decided those conversations also deserved their own space, and you can find them here:
Belloc’s 21st century walk details
I have divided the walk into seven sections, and this first section is from The George Inn in Robertsbridge to The Star at Old Heathfield via Brightling.
Walk 1. Robertsbridge to Brightling
This 23-kilometre section takes you from Robertsbridge through Oxley’s Green and Brightling, into Dallington Forest and onwards through Punnett’s Town to finish at The Star Inn in Old Heathfield. The landscape is undulating, with long, steady climbs rather than steep ascents, and the route follows a mixture of quiet lanes and footpaths through woodland and across fields. Belloc’s original route into Heathfield followed what is now the B2096, a busy road that makes for unpleasant and potentially dangerous walking. So, I decided to follow the alternative taken by Bob Copper when he retraced the journey for his 1990s book, Across Sussex with Belloc: In the Footsteps of “The Four Men”.
Facilities along the way are limited: there are pubs in Robertsbridge before you set off, and the Roots to the Moon’s farm shop and café, just outside Robertsbridge, makes an excellent stop. Beyond that, bring enough food and drink to see you through to The Star, an excellent pub at the finish. Public transport connections between the two ends are awkward; one option is a bus from Heathfield to Etchingham, followed by a train to Robertsbridge, although arranging a lift or leaving a car at either end makes things considerably easier. Distances are approximate as I tend to wander off piste.
Robertsbridge to Brightling: 6 km
Not that much has changed in Robertsbridge since Belloc’s day. The George still has the heady fug of a pub that is well loved with two large fireplaces and the chatter of a group of local men. From the pub you walk down towards the High Street and turn left down Station Road passing houses that would have been familiar to Belloc.
Nicolls was an independent cricket bat maker in Robertsbridge which started making cricket bats in 1875. These days, you’ll pass Grays Nicholls, as they have been since the 1940s, still making cricket bats in the town. Just pass that is the Rother Valley Railway station. This is a heritage railway project to re-open the “missing link” between Robertsbridge and Bodiam. The Rother Valley Railway opened in 1900 and the name was changed in 1904 to the Kent & East Sussex Light Railway. This puts it right in the centre of the time frame that Belloc set his walk.
As Bob Copper points out in his walk, when Belloc walked this way, cars were a rarity. They were not yet in mass production and you would be lucky to see one in this part of Sussex. With this in mind, and to recapture that sense of tranquillity, as I left Robertsbridge on the Brightling Road, I took the first footpath to my left at Darvell Bruderhof Community. Housed in a former tuberculosis hospital, both post date Belloc’s walk through these parts.
I was soon glad I took this path as once up the first hill, stretching views of Scalands Wood opened up and curling plumes of smoke hinted at past trades like charcoaling and iron making. I knew I was in iron making heartland so this felt suitably nostalgic undermined only slightly by the solar panels in the valley on the other side. Before long I passed a small saw mill with piles of sawdust and neatly chopped wood. New machinery, old industries after all.
Emerging back onto the lane, at Scalands Folly, from here on, I would be walking on reasonably quiet country lanes all the way to Brightling but I was surprised by how much remained familiar from Belloc’s and Copper’s accounts. Scalands itself is one important link with Belloc’s world, through his mother’s friendship with Barbara Bodichon, and perhaps helps explain the familiarity with which he mentions Scalands Wood in passing.
Further along, I passed the entrance to Brightling Hall and coming into Oxley’s Green, the forge described by Copper in his 1990s account is still set back from the road. It is now a private house, but there is something satisfying about finding it exactly where his words have led you to expect it. The same is true of the Fuller’s Arms, mentioned by both Belloc and Copper. This, too, is now a private home, although its pub exterior and surviving signage make its former life easy to imagine. It was here that Sailor joined Myself and Grizzlebeard while in Brightling, the church and Fuller’s pyramid mausoleum still stand, just as they did when he arrived.
So far, I had expected to be looking for what had disappeared. Instead, I kept noticing what had survived. The most obvious difference was the occasional car speeding past. One vehicle was towing a horsebox, which struck me as a reversal that might have amused Belloc: once the horse pulled us along these lanes; now we pull the horse. Between those passing interruptions, it was surprisingly easy to imagine the road as it might have been more than a century ago.
Brightling to Dallington Forest: 10 km
Much as “Myself” (Belloc) and Grizzlebeard, had met the third character of the book, Sailor at the Fullers Arms just outside Brightling, I was meeting my first walking companion at Fuller’s mausoleum and church in Brightling. Greeted by the church bells chiming 10 am, right on queue, Sam (Samantha Norgate) arrived as I did.
We set off on the Brightling Road towards Burwash and Dallington, passing the fields of Brightling Park, formerly home of Mad Jack Fuller and now a wedding and equestrian centre. Stopping to look back we enjoyed achingly open views across Rounden Wood spread behind us. On the map, it shows a conveyor belt through these woods which has been used to convey gypsum from gypsum mines since the 1960s. I am not sure what Belloc would have thought about that.
At the small triangular crossroads, we took Bob Copper’s route, forking right into Willingford Lane, passing another of the Fuller follies (the Obelisk or Needle) and then turning left onto the footpath that would take us through Dallintgon Wood to Glazier’s Forge.
Dallington Forest is a stunning stretch of ancient woodland, encompassing a Site of Special Scientific Interest and threaded through by Willingford Stream. Oak, beech, hazel, birch, chestnut and pine line the paths, while charcoal hearths, hollow ways and evidence of Roman and Anglo-Saxon ironworking hint at centuries of activity beneath the trees. The forest also supplied timber during the Second World War.
Copper captures the contrast between the forest’s past and present beautifully: “Presently the path dropped down to Glaziers Forge, where the Willingford stream trickles unconcernedly under an ancient stone bridge. […] Three hundred years ago the woodlands would have been clamorous with the racket of a waterwheel operating a forge hammer and the bustle and shouting of the ironworkers, for this is the heart of the one-time Sussex iron industry. [But today] The mellow-tiled house built for the ironmaster in about 1650 stood mutely.” It is hard to believe this beautifully peaceful pocket was once a noisy corner of industry.
Dallington Forest to Old Heathfield: 7 km
From the stream at Glazier’s Forge, we began the steady climb back into a stunning stretch of woodland. Here we were joined by not one but two herds of deer, crossing our path before moving to the shelter of the trees. We stopped to watch them, and they watched us back. For a few quiet moments, neither party seemed in much of a hurry to move on. Eventually, the path emerged from the woods as we approached Punnett’s Town, where we made a small detour past Blackdown Mill. Belloc would not have passed this way, but we were happy to make the diversion.
Blackdown Mill was originally built in Cranbrook, Kent, before being moved to Punnetts Town in 1859, where it worked until 1920. Windmills would later become particularly close to his heart through his association with Shipley Windmill, near Horsham.
From the windmill, we dropped down into Punnett’s Town and ate our lunch on a bench on the edge of the main road and back on Belloc’s original route while waiting for our next walking companions, Claire Nash and Annick King. Now four women, we were ready for the final stretch to Old Heathfield. Rather than follow the busy road, we took a footpath that ran parallel with it, around the back of Mount Pleasant Farm. This brought us out at Cade Street, directly opposite the footpath that would lead us across the valley to Old Heathfield.
Cade Street is traditionally associated with the capture and fatal wounding of Jack Cade. In 1450, amid widespread discontent with Henry VI’s government, Cade rallied a rebel army at Blackheath and defeated the king’s forces near Sevenoaks. But when the rebellion descended into violence and looting in London, support ebbed away. Cade fled into Sussex and, according to local legend, took refuge near Heathfield, where Alexander Iden caught up with him. Mortally wounded, Cade died while being taken to London, where his body was subsequently beheaded and quartered. The Cade Stone commemorates the encounter: “Near this spot was slain the notorious rebel Jack Cade by Alexander Iden, Sheriff of Kent.”
With The Star Inn waiting at the finish, we crossed the road and took the footpath south down into the valley for the last part of the walk. Here the footpath dips down before rising across fields and entering the churchyard at Old Heathfield behind which sits the pub. The Star Inn has a history that dates back to the 14th century, but more importantly, serves an excellent Sunday lunch and a fine selection of beers. Of this, Belloc would have definitely approved.
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